Fragility And Mockingjay Wings
by ahundreddoves
Summary: Kisses, baking, learning to trust again, healing; the story of Peeta and Katniss and how they came back to life again. Post-MJ pre-epilogue Katniss/Peeta. Lemons. No flames please.
1. Stay

AN: *WARNING* *WARNING* This fanfic contains some outrageously, horrifically messy writing - I kid you not. I don't care about reviews, but _please don't flame_. I flame myself more than anyone else needs to.

Why must inspiration always hit me when I'm having exams? If I fail econs... we all know why, ha. So. This might be a two-shot, I'm not sure yet, but if there's one thing I'm quite positive about it's that there should be a lemon somewhere or other. A tasteful one. Oh, and if you could adjust the story width? That would be splendid.

One last thing! If you would like to see how Katniss and Peeta are like to me you can check out my artwork at:** liefelijkoverleveren (dot) deviantart (dot) com**. I promise it'll be worth your time.

With that! Chapter name and lyrics within are taken from_ "On The Safest Ledge"_ by Copeland. (Beautiful song, amazing band.) Here we go!

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><p><em>The sun burns a hole straight through your old flaws<em>

_If you look toward the sky even on your greyest night_

_Could you be happy now with the wind in your hair_

_And your eyes open wide and your feet going nowhere?_

* * *

><p>She has to give herself something to do, and this is better than nothing. The slips of paper in her fingers tremble along with her hand, and she dumps them on the carpet, kneels by the fireplace, and feels for a match.<p>

Nearly half a year ago, before she'd left the Capitol, Dr. Aurelius told her that the deepest, most underlying problem within her troubled patchwork soul was that she'd rendered herself unforgiveable, claiming every tragedy as another piece to a twisted, violent jigsaw puzzle encapsulating all her crimes. The berries. The impulsiveness in the Victory Tour that cost people their lives and stirred up the rebellion like sparks to tinder. Every propo she'd ever done which left Peeta less of himself and more of a mutt. He clutched her arms, made her look into his eyes, and told her that none of what happened was her fault. But she could not bring herself to believe him.

Hope could not be so near at hand. The doorway out of this misery could not - should not - be open so soon. She must pay for her mistakes, her impulsiveness, her rashness; she must pay for them in full. Because to forgive herself is to forget, and she owes too much to too many people to forget what they had sacrificed, even if it means staying in the darkened room of her mind, helpless against the nightmares.

One month passes, and then another, then still yet another. Greasy Sae, head shaking in quiet concern, makes her breakfast and dinner, draws her baths, and also invites Peeta, who comes with fresh bread every morning and tries to smile at her from across the table.

She doesn't need to be particularly smart to figure out that he is the one who cooks lunch for her and leaves it set neatly on the table while she loses herself (literally, and half on purpose) in the woods. She reflects gloomily with her chin in her palm that it's really very frustrating that _he_ was the one who nearly lost his mind because of a torture planned specifically for him and the moment he's recovered somewhat he's already looking out for her again, making sure _she_ has what _she_ needs, the girl who was broken only because she'd happened to lose some people in her life she'd loved a great deal. (And she hadn't even lost _him_ in the end.) _Can you compare stuff like this?_ She wonders. _Whose situation was more dire? Huh, what a trick question. Of course his_.

They talk sometimes, about trivial things like bread and hunting and the weather, but she sees the pain in his eyes and wonders if he can see hers. Everything comes down to him, for some reason; every activity in her life is marred by the distance she puts between them, and somehow it's all very clear that the sooner they get this out of the way the better they can heal. She knows he wants to reach out and touch her, and the truth is that she needs his touch; but she _can't ask_, and she won't let him. He's the last person she wants to hurt and she's done too much to him to accept his arms and his forgiveness just yet - the nightmares must have their way in the darkness, and she will wait until the wall she put between them has worn down with time.

She is a ghost during the daytime and more join her when the sun sets. Most nights an image of her little sister alight in flame blazes hot and furious in her mind, torture replayed over and over like the jabberjays in the Quell. Only this time, _this time_, this is real. At first, any thought of healing is tossed aside in the harshness of her grief, but as the months go by and the circles under her eyes blacken she begins to wonder wearily that if Prim _could_ reach out to her from the other side, she would plead, fingers clasped around her own, that she let go.

Let go and live.

* * *

><p>She doesn't know - that is, at least, what he thinks - but he's observing her from afar.<p>

And he wishes he could come nearer, nearer to her house, to her side of the couch on those blessed days when dinner is followed by some meager attempt at small talk in the living room, nearer to _her_. If there's one thing he's nearly always ever been, though, it's a gentleman; and with a person like his girl on fire, one can never be too careful. So he does little things. He bakes cheese buns for her everyday, prepares her lunch, and tries not to sit next to her chair and wait for her to get back so they can eat together. He isn't sure she's ready or if she would appreciate his company at the only meal she's able to be alone at. He gives a wry smile, remembering some people who'd asked him frankly (and a little bewilderedly) how he could stand loving her, taking care of her, doing a hundred little things that she brushed aside so easily. His reply was always the same: "You don't know her." Nobody knows her, it seems (and that's understandable because she held everyone at arm's length) but _he does_. He has the nights on the train, the times they spent on the Training Center roof, the days in the arena to prove it. Everyone is watching her, but they don't see. Only he does.

He doesn't know how to explain it, but she's revealed a side of herself to him no one's ever witnessed (except maybe Gale) and somehow every cuttingly straight remark she's made or black frown she's given him can never affect the way he sees her ever again.

That's why he's patiently waiting. Because he wants to catch a glimpse of his Katniss and he doesn't care how many months or years it will take.

Days go by and he learns to deal with his flashbacks. Every single one is horrific, but he has to believe he's getting better, coming out of it, even if he doesn't think so. There's a chair in his room that becomes his gripping post, and when the terror of a flashback looms upon him he learns to clamp a hand on the chair and take the false memory by the horns. He gulps deep breaths, then struggles to make out if the memory's shiny, then he counts to ten and thinks about all the good things anyone has ever done for him. In spite of this , every time does leave him like a patched-up vase that can't stop cracking and he finds tears in his eyes as he fights off visions of Katniss growing fur and fangs, Cato and his gigantic sword chopping him to bits to feed to the mutts, the bakery on fire with his family burning within, Johanna screaming while the Peacekeepers throw buckets of water over her. He steels his nerves and hunts for a towel by himself. No one will walk into his bedroom and find him crying. No one will draw from their own limited optimism and energy to help him. There are people with worse wounds than his own. He doesn't want to reopen anyone's wounds.

* * *

><p>Finnick visits her in her dreams halfway through the fourth month, trapped and desperate in the horrible embrace of a rose mutt. For once, for the first time out of countless many, she can hear his voice.<em> Katniss, I did this for me. For you. For Annie. <em>Is that sugar she smells?_ For Peeta. For Panem. I chose my path. _His lips stretch in a joyful smile even as he fights a mutt away._ I wouldn't have let you save me if it meant sacrificing one of the others._

But she flings herself to the side of the bed in grief, still asleep._ I can't yet!_ She cries back to him. _I can't forget so fast what you did as though it were nothing. I can't forget your life. That's why I remind myself every night! Finnick, don't you understand? That's why I let the nightmares come!_

She comes awake with a start, realizing that she's hollered every word - why else are her ears burning so surely? Her hand feels for her boy with the bread before she remembers that they don't do the sleeping arrangements any longer. She tries to tell herself that she's glad, that her trashing was never good for his own sanity in the first place, but there's a dull ache right over where her heart is and she takes hours to fall back asleep.

All the while he listens to her call for Finnick, lying dormant and sad on his bed. This isn't the right time to barge in and comfort her, he reasons, even though it's all he can do not to imagine taking her in his arms and holding her. She needs her time alone, he tells himself - can't he see that by the wall she puts between them every morning? (He doesn't know it comes crashing down every night.) With a sigh, he closes his eyes and tries to remember how it felt to stroke her hair.

The last night she stands for this, the night she crumbles, rain is falling hard and she sees Prim again - only this time _she's_ holding her little sister's hands, unwilling to let her go.

This time, Prim turns to her, tears to her eyes.

And this time, Prim is the one who says, "Katniss,_ let go_."

She chokes as she tries to swallow down the sudden hard lump in her throat as she remembers that was exactly what she'd said to Prim at the Reaping. Now she knows what it feels to let someone go to their death… to shake off their hands and tell them, "_You_ go on. Go on and _live_. I've got to do what I've got to do, but_ stay where you are in the land of the living if you love me_." And finally she knows, too, that she has to let all those people go, because that's what they would've told her if they could.

She has to let them go the first chance she gets.

Her mind wanders to her boy. Because he _is_ hers, hasn't been anyone else's, ever. Her boy, her sweet, patient, gentle, selfless boy. She realizes, all of a sudden, that she wants to keep it that way, wants to keep him _hers_ for always, but right now the cumbersome wall she's put up between them complicates things even with Gale gone. (She doesn't want Gale back. Not for a long time. And not because she hates him, but because his fire burns her frequently and she has to heal. He never offered her true hope, not in the way she realizes Peeta does.)

She needs her boy, cannot survive without him, and has finally learned to accept that as a good thing. She knows why her best friend had said she would pick who she couldn't survive without, knows why her boy didn't disagree - because it is true, and it is beautiful. It's the privilege one of them hoped to have. Somehow admitting that she only loves him wouldn't be enough; he needs to know she can't survive without him. And she wants to give him that, but not while she is a ghost with more ghosts for company at night and an unnecessarily effective wall between them.

_You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him_. Haymitch, that old drunk, right once again. She doesn't deserve him. He doesn't deserve her, deserves _more_ than her. But she needs him to survive, and she wants to hope that maybe… maybe he needs her too.

She pads across the floorboards and opens her window, gasping as showers of cool raindrops pelt her face, her arms, her hair. She can see his house, the light in his room at this hope-forsaken time of night. The only thing that occurs to her as she slides down the wall to crumple onto the floor and let the wind blow the rain in is that she misses him. She misses him so badly.

* * *

><p>He stares at his still-wet paintings and wishes he didn't bring all the memories to life on the canvas. Things he should forget, things that should stay forgotten. He never had Katniss's problem, nightmares of people he killed, because he'd hardly killed anyone. But then he remembers the District 8 girl. Foxface. Brutus. Mitchell. And he hates it, hates himself, wants to scream, <em>"What was wrong with you?"<em> He's so angry that paint begins to splash on canvasses with a violence so unknown to his own self that he gets angrier, smashing the bristles of his brush into what was Mitchell hanging bloodied from the fence, ruining it for good. _For good_. He likes that phrase. Yes, it's _good_ he can't get his painting back. And he doesn't want to try, either.

Gripping his windowsill in frustration, he opens the latch and lets the rain rush in, soaking him and his paintings and making the colours on his hands, his shirt, his canvasses run. He runs a hand through his sopping hair and grimly watches the forms of violence and torture recede and pool defeated onto the newspapered floor. He won't remember any of this stuff. He_ refuses_ to, he decides, scooping up the newspapers and dumping them in a pile so he can burn them in the morning.

With a sigh he slumps defeated, on his floor, against the wall. He's not tired and he knows better than to try and sleep when he doesn't feel like it. Offhand he wonders what she is doing, and then he feels a painful twist in his chest. It's not a flashback - they only come once in awhile now because he has grounded himself, truly grounded himself, in what's real - but he hurts all the same. He hurts for her.

Gale isn't here with her anymore. Greasy Sae can only do so much. And Haymitch stubbornly refuses to set foot inside either of their houses until they've "resolved the problems they have with each other." He wishes every minute of the day that he could be by her side, protecting her, comforting her just like he did in the nights on the train, which he remembers now completely. He knows why he didn't understand those memories while he was in District 13 - they'd been hijacked specifically. They were that special to him, actual proof that he had been there when she needed him.

Then he sees the shock and terror in her eyes when he'd wrapped his hands around her neck to choke her to death and he blinks away the wetness in his eyes. She should never trust him now, and he can't blame her. He knows she must have had a nightmare tonight (she has nightmares _every_ night) but whenever he hears something as remote as a soft cry from her window he immediately closes his own because the last thing he wants to do is run in there and end up hurting her again because she doesn't need _him_.

He misses her, though. He misses her so badly.

He picks up the paintbrush he flung away and carefully mixes a warm olive and also a cool, crystal grey, and on the rain-soaked canvas that once hold a bleeding Rue covered in petals he begins to paint a girl with warm skin and cool eyes like dim starlight.

_His_ girl. She'd kissed him after the rose mutt incident, with no cameras around, Gale bleeding at the side. She'd kissed him because she wanted to.

He says it aloud, because it's something Dr. Aurelius would've made him do.

"_My_ girl." That sounded right somehow. He knows it to be true. He wants to kiss her so badly, to feel her lips against his own.

Then, because Dr. Aurelius would've prompted him still further, he whispers her name.

"_Katniss_." His girl, who used to be on fire. Not on fire anymore, but blown out. He needs to light her back up, watch her burn with life again. He wants children with her, a home, Haymitch as the crusty old Grandpa and that lethal Buttercup as their guard cat.

He's never done this before. Painted her, that is. It brings a small smile to his lips, remembering Effie in the Quarter Quell, asking him if he'd painted Katniss to impress the Gamemakers. The truth is that he'd never do something as precious as paint her in front of just anyone, and tonight he is doing it by himself, for himself. He needs to see her with his eyes, even if it's just a picture. He needs to hope that someday she'll let him hold her again… so he paints her doing just that.

* * *

><p>She fights back tears as her hand wobbles, shaking the words she is carefully trying to write. The sunlight beams coldly down on her bare thighs and calves stretched out as she struggles to form words. Everything seems to want to stop her, but she's determined that today is the day she will let go.<p>

_To Boggs: I cry every time I think about your family. I'm sorry I couldn't save you. You were like my father and I couldn't save him either._

_To Rue: You were always about to take flight, but you can't now because I didn't save you. I'm sorry._

The shorter the note, the harder it had been to write. It was almost like the lists she used to make in her head, starting with her name and branching out to more excruciating details, but this time, she can't even make herself specify the excruciating details. So she doesn't. She has to give herself something to do. And this is better than nothing. This is good enough.

_To the whistler in District 11: You lost your life because of me. I couldn't save you. _

_To Madge: I should have saved you. I couldn't. Sorry._

_To Finnick: Couldn't save you. So sorry. I'm so sorry._

Finally she forms the words "To Prim" and then promptly stops. The paper begins to blur in her vision until she can hardly read her sister's name. _What to write_, she begs herself._ What to write_. She buries her head in her knees, hugging them closer to herself, dropping the pen.

_To Prim:_

No words come.

_To Prim:_

She hears a plaintive meow and finds Buttercup at her elbow, watching her, like he knows what she's trying so desperately to do. He slips his head under her arm, a show of affection that would bring her to tears if she weren't already crying, and she cuddles him close.

_To Prim:_

"I can't do this," she tells the cat. He hisses halfheartedly back. _Yes you can._

_To Prim: I wish you were here. Buttercup misses you. Peeta planted your flowers around my house. I think you would've liked them._

She can't bear to write_ I'm sorry_. But she must. She must, so she can let her go. And so she adds it with as much bravado she can muster and gathers up all the other slips of paper.

"It's time to burn," she tells Buttercup seriously.

The fire is lit and she begins to toss the notes in one by one. She even closes the windows and breathes in the smoke that collects rapidly, making out that it's the final punishment, that there'll be no more after this. It's amazing how many people she needs to let go of, though, and she's only halfway through before she'd coughing hard. The door opens and she whips her head towards it. He is standing there, his hands full of paint-smeared newspapers, his face alarmed.

"Katniss! What's going on?"

"Letting them go," she croaks.

"Not yourself too, I hope," he tries to joke, hurrying to open all the windows. She doesn't try to stop him, doesn't feel like telling him that he's ruining her little ritual. He's the breath of fresh air she needs.

"What are you doing here?" She asks him carefully.

He turns to look at her. "I saw smoke from your chimney and wondered if I could share the fire. I've got some stuff to burn." (Actually he could've lit his own fire in his own fireplace, but he wants to see her.)

She raises her eyebrows. "You're going to burn paint?"

"Is that a bad idea?" He starts to panic. "I just really want to get rid of all of it."

"Dunno," she shrugs, moving closer to the window. To him. To fresh air. "Might be toxic. Might be too easily flammable, burn the house down. Maybe not. I'm not sure though."

The look on his face is so comically dismayed she wants to laugh. "What am I gonna do then?"

"Just stick it in the trashcan and wait for it to get carted away."

"But…"

She watches him. "You need to let stuff go, do you?"

He bows his head. "Yeah."

Everything comes down to this, always. Him and her, side by side. The Games have changed so much of their lives that it will never be the woods with Gale or the bakery with two older brothers and a possible town girl on his arm (but never in his heart). It will always be_ them_, two unlikely people joined by a mutual need to survive… no, she corrects herself. That was her conviction. _His_ was to keep her alive. She'd never agreed to this arrangement, but it had grown on her heart like a silent garden creeper until the fact that she was trapped in its vise could no longer be ignored. And she doesn't want to ignore it any longer. She wants to accept it.

Her heart gives a queer jump in her ribcage. He's so close to her. Their arms are nearly touching, though why that would make her jumpy after all this time she has no idea . She licks her lips, nervous all of a sudden, and wants to laugh when she understands how people feel around each other when they're in love but don't know how to say it. Because finally, _finally_, yes, she knows she is in love with him.

But does he love her? (She doesn't know that she's doubting his love only because she's so sure of her own.)

_You know, you could live a thousand lifetimes and not deserve him._ Her stomach falls and the words slip out of her in a croak before she can stop them. "Stay with me."

_Did she…?_ He lifts his head to look at her with a gaze so intense she could melt under it. His own heart is thumping, _hammering_ in his chest at the words he never knew he needed to hearso_ badly_.

Stay with her.

Stay with her.

_Stay with her_. Is she kidding? This is what he wants to do for the rest of his life.

He takes her hand and they pause, holding their breaths, before he presses the back of it to his lips. "Always," he whispers back.

She is a girl on fire once more, her hands in his hair, pulling him closer as she kisses him dizzy. She's resting a hand on his chest, breathing his name into his mouth over and over again, _"Peeta, Peeta, Peeta,"_ and it gives him a thrill from his head to his toes. When she comes up for air tears seep out of the corners of her eyes, and in a daze he brushes them away tenderly with his thumb, his arm around her for the first time in months. He can hardly believe he is holding her again - it feels so good. "I've missed you," they tell each other at the same time, and they laugh. Then_ he's_ pulling her back and kissing her again, feeling her lips moving on his own, licking his way through them and hearing her gasp and laugh breathlessly because this feels amazing, so amazing. They are letting go, but not in the way they thought they would. This is better than whatever they could have dreamed up.

"You're kissing me because you want to," he murmurs softly against her cheek as he holds her. "Real or not real?"

Pain flashes across her face and she's glad he doesn't see - this is something she needs to come to terms with without him noticing because it'll hurt him if he does. He deserves to know that she wasn't kissing him because she wanted to in the first Games. He deserves to know that she kissed him on the beach in the second Games because she needed him. And now, he deserves to know that every kiss she gives him is real, real, real; every kiss is a kiss she wants to give, has to give, because she loves him.

She nuzzles his ear so he'll turn to look at her in the eye, and then - the first gift she can give him, the fresh start to a lifetime of loving him - she tells him, "Real."

His eyes light up like a little boy's and she hugs him close, hands on his solid back. "Making your childhood dreams come true?" She tries to joke.

"More than you'll ever know," he breathes back, his lips trailing down her neck. He finds a spot and sucks sweetly, and the air gets knocked right out of her as she buries her hands in his hair and whimpers.

What brings them both back down to earth is the cat, who meows crossly, circling their legs. She sighs and pulls away, genuinely upset at having to leave him. "The fire's still burning and I've got half of my people left to let go."

She doesn't have to explain because he understands more than anyone else. He takes her hand and they walk back to the fireplace together, and when they sit he pulls her into his lap because he wants to make this easier for her. When she's carefully laid Prim's slip into the flames at last and has watched it crackle merrily, he adds his newspapers. It isn't as bad as they'd thought, just a noxious smell, then the fire goes out on its own as if it knows that's all there is, that now everything's forgiven, forgotten.

She turns to him, eyes fixed on his, then he makes a move as if to stand. It's his way of telling her that if she wants he can leave now, give her some hours, even days alone if that's what she needs to say goodbye fully to the people on her slips of paper. But she whispers, "Stay with me," and that's when he knows she's already bid them farewell. His hands slide up and down her arms because she's shivering. "Stay with you?" he asks.

She nods, stands up, and pulls him to his feet too, smiling tenderly at him. "Come on." She leads him through every room in her house and he seems to understand that she's introducing them to him, almost like he's a breath of fresh air the sad, musty memories in the faded walls yearn for. Then she brings him to her room, straight to her bed. He hesitates, watching her sit on the edge and hold out her hand to him. He wants this so badly, wants to be holding her in his arms when the nightmares come, wants to be there for her when she needs him. This is where she needs him the most. But he has to know she's okay with it. "You sure?"

Her smile startles him - it's so happy, so unlike her usual glower that it should be assent in itself - and she says, "Get over here, Peeta." He crawls towards her, scoops her up in his arms, and kisses the breath right out of her. Her hands are in his hair, on his back, and he pulls her leg around him closer as he kisses her cheek, her forehead, her nose. "Stay with me," she repeats the words she spoke for the first time in this very room, before the Quell, when he'd carried her up because she couldn't walk and she'd wanted him to climb in with her but she couldn't ask. This time he knows what she's really asking, and he strokes her hair and says, "Okay." His hand still smells of cinnamon and dill from the bread he baked this morning.

* * *

><p>As they lie in bed together that night, she smiles, tracing her finger along his arm, making him laugh because it tickles. He adjusts his prosthetic leg, which he sleeps with, and pulls her close; then he asks her a little shyly, "You love me. Real or not real?"<p>

She pulls away in surprise, amazed that he would ask her, of all things, if her love was _real or not real_. The_ clarification game_. The game which helped him figure out whether what he_ himself_ knew was right or wrong. He must've known she loved him then; all this time, all throughout the first and second Games and the rebellion she'd loved him, worn her heart so unknowingly on her sleeve, and it must've been showing to Haymitch, to Prim, to Finnick, to Cinna, to Boggs, to Coin, toGale, to_ him_ all along and_ she_ didn't know that, but _he_ _remembered_.

And now he is finally asking her, because he can hardly dare to believe it is true.

She takes his face in her hands to look him in the eyes. Her fingers trail across his cheekbones, ghosting past the hollows in his temples, finding his forehead, and her lips follow in their wake gently while his eyelashes flutter shut and he exhales through his nose. She loves him. She loves him. She, Katniss Everdeen, loves Peeta Mellark, the boy she could live a thousand lifetimes for and still not deserve. There isn't anything she would ever want to hold back from him, least of all this, so she wraps her arms around him tighter, puts her lips to his ear, and whispers, "Real."

He thinks the tears in his eyes might be a little obvious, and his voice cracks noticeably as he says, "I love you too." Her eyes glisten and her smile back is shaky. "So now we both know." He looks up from where he's kissing his way down her neck. "Know what?"

She takes his hand and plants small kisses on his fingertips. "What's real."

"You never knew I loved you?" His voice is concerned.

"I mean... I know now that you love me even after all the things I did to you. And you were always declaring your love for me to some audience. Hearing you tell me to my face, with no one watching us... I don't know…"

He catches her drift. Her confession means the world to him, and so does his to her. And it's true, really - he has never once told _her_ outright that he loved her… until now. He grins, tapping his fingers gently on her waist. "I love you."

Her answer is a gasp and squeal of laughter, and his smile widens as she tries to regain her composure. "Ticklish huh, Everdeen?"

"Don't make me get my bow, Mellark," she threatens and tries to push his fingers away, but her hunter's senses are off a second too late and they're rolling around in bed laughing and squealing while he tickles the life right out of her. Pretty soon she's crying for mercy, literally, tears streaming down her aching cheeks as she makes wild attempts to escape from his clutches and begs, "PEETA! _Stoooooop_!" He laughs in complete disregard before pinning her in place, whispering, "One condition."

She's too tired to even roll her eyes. "No." But his hand gives her a few warning pokes and she gasps helplessly. "Okay, okay, okay! What?" He smiles innocently. "Oh, you know I'm a nice guy. One kiss is good."

Her sigh is one long, exaggerated exhalation because she's so out of breath, then she scrunches up her face like he's a disgusting cockroach and pecks him on his cheek. But he turns his head so she's kissing his lips instead. What they've done to trigger this he doesn't know, but it's like a switch being flipped on deep inside them - a curiously warm feeling in the pits of their stomachs that they'd never planned on feeling so soon. Their laughter and pants slowly melt into little sighs and moans as he grasps her head closer to his, eyelashes brushing against her cheek, and coaxes her mouth open.

_How could they still feel this need deep inside them?_ The only answer she can give as she licks his soft lips is that it's been far too long, the wait. The wait for this moment where they're wrapped so amazingly around each other, where they can never be unsure of what they feel because it's multiplied a hundred times and very pleasurably _real_. His hands are caressing her waist and her legs are tangled in his before one slithers up higher and rubs a deft heel rubbing against the small of his back, which feels achingly good. He lets out a quiet moan and responds by finding that spot on her neck she loves and sucking gently so that she lets her head fall back with a gasp. Just as he's hoping against hope that, you know, this might actually lead _somewhere_, her eyes snap open. She pulls away suddenly, gives him a mock glare, and pushes him off her neatly. "The deal was one kiss, Mellark."

He stares at her, openmouthed and utterly disappointed. "You weren't leading me on, were you?"

"Don't put it past me." She does her best to cover her sudden panic with a smirk.

He buries his face in his pillow and groans. "I hate you."

"What happened to the declarations of love?" She teases, but he catches the huskiness in her voice, how she's taking a while to catch her breath. She caresses his hair, then says embarrassedly, "Peeta… I'm not ready yet."

He turns his head to give her a gentle smile. "Don't worry about it. Honestly, I had no idea we were going that way either."

"But," she bites her lip bashfully. "You want to?"

He entwines his fingers with hers. "Of course I do," he whispers slowly. "But I'd never if you don't want to."

"I... want to." She says falteringly as she traces his collarbone and tries to maintain eye contact. "Just not now." Her face feels hot.

"Sure." He yawns and rests his hand on her hip, touched that she feels comfortable enough to be open with him even if it means admitting that she's scared. Their eyelids are closing of their own accord when an angry meow echoes off the walls and Buttercup jumps gracefully onto the bed, making them both jump. He sits up straightaway, half wondering if the animal's going to attack, when she laughs and squeezes his arm. "He's upset we forgot him."

"Really?" He's not entirely convinced, not even when the cat lies on her other side and sandwiches them closer.

She smiles and cuddles into his chest, tired out from all the tickling and kissing. "Mm-hmm. And I think he's jealous too because he's not the only protector anymore," she murmurs sleepily.

His eyes light right up, but since he doesn't need any explanation he just kisses her cheek. "'Night, Katniss."

And the moon throws light onto their bed and their little family as they drift off huddled together to a sleep with no nightmares.

* * *

><p><em>Could you be happy to fall like a stone<em>

_If you'd land right here safe in my arms?_

_It's fine; lock all your doors through the night_

_Keep it alright here safe in my arms._


	2. Trust

**AN:** First off, I apologize if I seemed to have abandoned this story – I promise you, I've been working on this all month and every single day as a freaking two shot and subsequently stuffing everything into this chapter so it had something around 30,000 words. I am not kidding. But yesterday I made the (tough) decision that if I fed all 30,000 words to you in one chapter, your brains would die. Figuratively… and literally. So here's chapter 2, shortened nicely into some 7000 words! I promise the wait for chapter 3 won't be as long, because I've already written nearly everything.

**Fragility and Mockingjay Wings** = fiveshot. Possibly. Most likely.

Please prepare yourselves for more messy writing.

**And before I can forget, real, graphic lemons will be present in the chapters to come. This story's rating will change from T to M. It's highly advisable that you don't read if you are NOT considered a Mature reader (ie: under the age of 17). Just sayin'. **

**Disclaimer: **I don't own The Hunger Games, or the characters within. Just this story. (Hey, look, the first time I remembered to put a disclaimer!)

* * *

><p><strong>Careful Hands – Sleeping at Last<strong>

_Wrists get tired rewriting futures_

_Our bodies beg us to be creatures of habit_

_We are creatures of habit_

_Only with careful hands_

_We'll turn their fangs into feathers and cures_

_Only with careful hands_

_We'll divide the prisoner_

_From the pioneer_

* * *

><p>Morning is creeping in like the mist that settles in her forest, and as her eyes flicker open and slowly focus out of the window she sees the dark sky streaking itself in orange and pink. Buttercup is out like a light beside her (<em>Huh,<em> she thinks. _What a cat_) but when she turns to look for her other sleeping companion she finds only crumpled bed sheets, the rest of the blanket tucked carefully around her. Her forehead begins to crinkle as she comes awake a little more. _Where can he be?_

The answer, of course, is perfectly clear once she uses her sense of smell - the sweet scent of baking bread wafts gently past the door. She throws the blanket off her and pads out of her room, across the landing, down the stairs, through the living room, and into the kitchen, where he's hard at work, kneading dough at the counter while bread bakes in the oven. Retying her robe and crossing over to him, her bare feet feel cool on the kitchen tiles, and she plants a little kiss between his shoulder blades. "Morning."

He turns and gives her a shy smile. "Hi."

This all feels so new, somehow. Peeta sleeping in her bed, waking up early to bake bread in her kitchen, so that it rightfully is _their_ bed, _their_ kitchen. He's moved in. And having only a boy besides herself in this big house, which used to hold a mother and a golden-haired girl who will never come back, is painful with their absence and foreign with his closeness to her. She honestly can't say that she's far worse off though, because if she could choose anyone - anyone else _at all_ - besides her own family, she would pick Peeta in a heartbeat.

Gale… they could never live together. They'd have too many disagreements (small ones, but heaven knows they'd pile up), leave the house in a mess because neither of them exactly cared about neatness, spend most of their time together out of doors anyway. Peeta is the only one who makes her feel like actually staying in, with him. She would've picked him. She _has_ picked him. And, against all odds, in the true nature of a miracle, here he is. A ghost of himself, she'd argue if she wanted to be pessimistic. But she doesn't want to be pessimistic, is_ tired_ of being pessimistic, and this was more than she'd ever hoped for. He is so much more than a mere ghost of himself.

"That smells good. Is it raisin bread?" She reaches for a slice that's already cut and waiting to be eaten.

"Yeah. Oh, and I made cheese buns too."

She gives an exasperated laugh. "Peeta! Again?"

He raises an eyebrow at her from the oven. "Are you finally sick of them?"

"No, I could never be." She rolls her eyes. "Just… does it matter so much to bake them because they're my favourite?"

He shrugs as he takes out one tray and puts in another. "Not at all, really. It's what I do." It's what he's always done.

She'll just have to match that, she decides. "I'm going hunting in a few, we need to stock up and make the most of autumn before it goes. Any special requests for lunch?"

"I'd like it if you guessed," he says mischievously. He knows playful banter annoys her, but last night gave him any amount of hope.

And as he guessed, her sigh is more out of habit than actual irritation. "Wow, I have no idea, Peeta. What about a _squirrel_?"

"You know me too well," he grins.

There is no more fence to separate the woods from her, and she has to stop her natural instinct of bending to crawl and just walk straight ahead instead.

As she finds herself in the familiar shade of trees, the realization hits her that she'd never once thought forgiving herself and letting Peeta in would ever be this easy. But against all her fears, apprehensions, and blinding doubts, _it has_. And now there is suddenly hope for a future she never thought she would live to see, anticipation in waking up every morning to a day she could spend with him, and the old enjoyment and solace in hunting, which has never been anything short of crushingly painful since she came back from the Capitol. It's always reminded her of Gale, but now that his void has been filled and then some she finds that she misses him, wouldn't mind seeing him again.

Because it doesn't hurt anymore.

She hears a squirrel, loads an arrow with stealth, and shoots. It falls near her feet with an arrow in its eye as always, and she goes on to shoot three more and finds a rock nearby where she can skin them.

Once her job is done, she leans back and breathes deeply. The quiet calm of the woods, for the first time since she'd met Gale, is the same as when she'd entered it with her father. It had always been Gale and her in here, but now that Gale is gone...

She takes a deep breath and remembers the man before him. She remembers his grey eyes bright and how his breath tickled as he leaned to whisper in her ear, "Want to go for a walk, little songbird?" Her mother halfheartedly protesting that he was teaching his own daughter how to hunt illegally. His own laugh as he assures his wife that he just wants to show his little songbird the forest.

She closes her eyes and lets herself be lifted back in time - his rough hands on her own little ones as he teaches her so patiently how to notch an arrow in the string. Correct posture, he tells her with his hand on her back to show her. Aiming. Finally, shooting - her fingers releasing the string and the sudden sharp _twap_ of the arrow as it flies, startling her after the intense quiet before. His consoling when she'd miss, the comfort of his hands when the string whipped her face, and the genuine praise when she'd bring down something (mostly by accident).

And then... and then, he would hold her on his lap, in his arms. And they'd sing together, her melody and his harmony...

_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true_

_Here is the place where I love you. _

The mockingjays would imitate their song, an orchestra weaving intricate wonderment of the melody they had been stunned to silence by. Then her father, his voice low, mournful, and sweet, would hush them again as he prompts her,

_Are you, are you…_

She doesn't notice the sadness in his eyes as she blithely finishes,

… _coming to the tree?_

How could he have known the horrific years that would lie ahead, his daughter the figurehead of a massive rebellion with the haunting melody of that song to drive her nearly insane? He never knew. He would never know. And she is glad.

Her mind wanders to contemplate what he would think of Peeta. He'd never tell her that she was with someone above her own class. He never believed that the Seam was any worse than the townspeople. He would laugh and wink, make her embarrassed, tease about how the boy could scare away any game within a five-mile radius - but then again, she would have never given Peeta a thought under normal circumstances.

_War is a funny thing_, she frowns at the light between the leaves. _It took so much… but it left me the boy who gives me hope_.

While the songs of the mockingjays piece back her memories in the forest, he makes his way to the bushes he'd planted outside of her house and snips two of the prettiest, most delicate primroses to keep them from the oncoming threat of winter. Holding them in his hand, he's wondering if he should put them in a vase or something and if Katniss will be upset that he's cut them when she sees. Then he just knows. He knows what he will do, what's somehow been in the back of his mind all this while, what made him feel like keeping the two fragile flowers away from winter's cruelty.

His feet bring him back into the house, across the living room, and up the stairs. He stands outside the closed white door, remembering how Katniss had hesitated before opening it and showing him what was inside. He remembers how her hand grasped his, how her breath had hitched more than once, how she was trying, trying desperately not to cry which he'd felt concerned about because she should know that with him, she could let her tears fall.

There's a little white ribbon tied around the doorknob, and he takes it between his finger and thumb, feeling its satin smoothness, wondering if Prim had ever tied this around her hair.

Because he's not sure if Katniss isn't already due back for lunch, he swallows his own hesitation, pushes the door open and then shuts it behind him. Immediately the impact of grief hits him like a ton of bricks. Golden hair in two braids, a high, sweet voice. Her little hand which had dared to hold his while he raged helplessly in the iron grasp of flashbacks that weren't real. Prim… _Prim_.

Primrose Everdeen.

There is a thick layer of dust on her pale blue bedspread, on her neat little writing table. Still clutching the primroses in his hand, he sits on the floor, resting his back against the white door. _White_… he thinks. Ironic; white should represent her purity, but now it only represents his grieving for her.

No one - not even Katniss - knows the intense bond he had shared with the innocent child that the rebellion had made a grave little woman of too soon, but it was something that made him the person he is today, that helped him heal better than he ever thought possible. The fragile primroses shivering in the cold autumn wind reminded him so much of her. She was beauty that the Capitol could not destroy any other way than to simply take her life, and District 13, when he doubted his own integrity and gentleness, she proved to him that hope still existed.

She would slip in while Haymitch lay dead drunk and knocked out at the other side of the glass, and from where he was restrained he would shout at her to get out, shout all kinds of obscenities she should have quavered to be called but never did.

She was never disgusted by him, because she looked past who he was now that the Capitol had had its way with him. She was only moved - inevitably, inexplicably, even to tears the last time she visited him because unlike everyone else who was simply horrified, she was one of the few who remembered _who he used to be_. Who he really _was_, underneath that brick wall of lies the Capitol had built for him. She remembered him as the boy with the bread, long after Katniss had forsaken that through her pain and called him the boy who should be dead.

Seeing her weep would reduce him to tears too, because even in his lowest, most inhuman state, he could never ever bear to see a child cry. She would hug him, her skinny arms around his shoulders, and they would sob together because of the hatefulness of this whole war.

The war that could change him from kind Peeta Mellark into a raging mutt bent on killing his girl, the girl he had loved ever since he heard her sing. The war that could find young Primrose Everdeen having to be brave for a hijacked piece of goods like him and other horrifyingly wounded grown men and women.

He pleaded with her to kill him, call Haymitch or somebody to kill him because he wasn't worth keeping. He had been a piece of their games all along, was violated, was nothing more than a Capitol-bred mutt. But she clutched his face so tenderly and said surely through her tears, "You will always be hope, Peeta. You'll always be the one reason why Katniss finds worth in being alive, although she'll never tell you that. If you die, she dies. And not literally - but she'll never be truly alive again."

He gritted his teeth. Katniss, Katniss, Katniss, always _Katniss_. Everyone who came in here would try to convince him that she was not a mutt, she was the heroine of the rebellion, et cetera, but what did he care? She'd used him, plain and simple, and no matter how wonderful everyone else thinks her to be, he was never going to get past that fact. But then, looking into Prim's red eyes and scrunched up face, he realized that she'd said something different from everyone else._ You'll always be the one reason why Katniss finds worth in being alive, although she'll never tell you that_.

Being used is one thing, but being the only reason why someone doesn't commit suicide in this bloody war? Being the only reason why someone doesn't go insane and kill people left and right like a raging lunatic?

Being the only reason why someone thinks this hateful life is worth clinging on to?

Apparently he, broken and hijacked, is the only thing that keeps her from swallowing that nightlock pill.

"It's never been President Snow," Prim had choked out. "Killing him will never give her any hope. And… neither will Gale. There's no hope in destroying things, Peeta. That's why she's holding on to you."

"She's using me!" he would shout back in anguish, wanting to believe her but not being able to. "Stop telling me these lies! I can't afford to believe them. I don't give anyone _anymore_ hope! LOOK AT ME!" he challenges the girl in front of him. "Look at me and tell me what the heck you see in me!"

He will never forget the smile that could blossom on her face through all the grief and pain it held before. She whispered, "I see Peeta Mellark."

Not a mutt.

Peeta Mellark.

She gave him back his name. And he would never have the chance to thank her, because the very next day he'd be hustled out of his cell to join the Star Squad and then leave without seeing her to say goodbye.

And now -

Now he is here, in her room, and it's like he can feel her sitting across from his, the same smile she had given him that day on her face. Just him, her, and the memories of who she was.

"Hi, Prim," he whispers. "I brought these for you." The sound of the front door opening shakes him out of his thoughts and he lays the primroses on her dusty bed before doing his best to slip out quietly.

He presses a kiss to his middle three fingers and puts them against her door, a salute to the girl who could've been his sister. "Thank you," he whispers, hoping she can hear him from the other side.

"Peeta?" He hears Katniss call. "Where are you?" There's a tinge of fear in her voice, and he guesses she's worried she'll find him passed out with his wrists slit or something. He doesn't blame her, really. He gallops down the stairs, taking great pains to be noisy so she can locate him better. "I'm here, Katniss! Was just upstairs checking on something."

She smiles at him, relieved, squirrels held by their tails in her fist. "Look what I brought back."

After lunch, they sit on the back porch. She wonders if such things, like the comfort of Peeta sitting next to her, her father's laugh, and the goat licking Prim's cheek could ever be forgotten. Then she thinks about Johanna's axe, Finnick's eyes, the way Boggs reprogrammed the Hologram - all these things that are kept only in her memory, an unreliable place for storing such things it would be a crime to forget. The more she thinks, the more she is sure that one day she _can_ forget. One day, possibly, she _will_ forget.

"Peeta?" She turns to look at him, sees he's deep in thought as well.

He has to shake himself out of the reverie he's constructed, where Prim and Finnick and Rue and his family and everyone else still live. "Yes?"

"Remember when I was letting people go yesterday?"

"Yes, I remember. Why?"

"Because, well, I'd originally thought that forgiving myself would mean forgetting what they did. But that's not true, right?"

"Definitely not," he says thoughtfully. "I guess it's all in the way you look at things. You could focus on the bad… or you could think about the good instead. There are things in the past two years worth remembering." His breath catches. "Forever."

"That's just what I was thinking." She glances at him thoughtfully, rests her head on his shoulder, feeling his hand come up to stroke her hair. "Peeta, what if we made a book? A book like the plant book, except that we write about the Games and the rebellion… and the people who sacrificed their lives?"

He squeezes her shoulder. "A whole book dedicated to never forgetting... I'd like that." He'd like that more than he can ever convey in words, so he doesn't try. "Do you need me to help you draw anything?"

"I was just going to ask you."

"You know my answer, then. What are you going to use for a book?"

"That's where Dr. Aurelius comes in. I'm going to call him up and ask for some paper."

He thinks about it. "I'll need some watercolour paints, too. Can I call instead? I need to give him the specifics, along with different brush sizes."

She agrees, and the rest of the day is spent in companionable silence. Nothing warns them of the oncoming night, and nothing really can, not after the peace of daylight fades into long shadows.

She dreams Snow and Coin are armed with bows and arrows, aiming straight at her. It's a pathetic sight - they're not archers - but everything's so vivid, so real that she's somehow sure that they will not miss. She's yelling for help, trying to run, when she realizes that she's tied down and tethered to a post as if awaiting execution.

"We can be rid of her at last," Coin laughs, and Snow agrees. Coin! She's promised the rebellion would end Snow, when all along, all along she'd been working with him. Lives lost were all in vain, Prim's noble death was of no consequence, and she, Katniss Everdeen, is about to meet her end the way she'd planned for Snow to meet his. They'd turned the tables on her.

She watches in horror as they elongate, morphing into the despicable rose mutts from that lucid dreamlike horror of the day they'd spent underground.

They let their arrows fly but none hit her heart, instead lodging in her legs and sending waves of pain and tracker-jacker hallucinations through her whole body. Arrows are strung again, ready, and she realizes through the shiny haze she's in that she's not to die but only to be tortured with her own weapons.

This time they aim at something to her right. It's hard for her to focus on turning her head when all she can see is a violent shimmering flock of swallows flying in her face with razor-sharp beaks, but she forces her head to the right and her whole world comes crashing down when she sees Peeta, her boy whom she'd worked so hard to protect with her life, tied to a similar post - his face white, scream frozen in his throat as one arrow finds his stomach and the other his arm. Or are there four arrows? Did they hit him twice in the same places or is she just hallucinating?

Her brain has shut down and she can only form one word over and over: "No. No. No, no, no, no, no, _no_…" Her heart is shattering right in her chest, she can feel every excruciating crack that carves its way into her stomach. Is anything she does ever going to be enough?

Peeta's question, during their victory interview with Caesar, comes back to taunt her: _"So now that you've got me, what are you going to do with me?"_

Her own staged but surprisingly genuine answer._ "Put you somewhere you can't get hurt."_ A thousand times more painful because she really meant it, and cruelly fated that she had never accomplished keeping him safe and now never will.

There are others, too, others alive and others who should be dead but seem to have been brought back to life for this gory finale - Gale, Beetee, Castor, Mitchell, Boggs, Pollux, Cressida, Thresh, Rue, all the way down to Prim, her mother, and even her father. The list goes on, as does the line, but Peeta's agonized cries are all she can hear as her stomach threatens to empty itself upwards, watching bloodstains blossom on his clothing and blot out his entire person. Her throat feels so hoarse from screaming when she feels arms shaking her awake.

"Katniss! Katniss!" She sees Peeta's face over hers, his hands clenched around her wrists. "Katniss, it's okay, it's not real!"

She begins to sob because it _feels_ real and her throat is raw too, and he pulls her close and rocks her, pressing kisses to her damp forehead and brushing away her tears although more pool out from under her lids and soak his shirt.

"It's over," he murmurs into her hair. "Whatever you saw. It's over now. We're safe."

She hugs him tighter, feels his heart beat through his chest, feels him so solid in her arms. He's here. Alive. She takes a few shuddering breaths and nods.

Then the muscles in his arms harden, and he panics as his breath catches._ No. No. Please, _he pleads._ Not now. _She shimmers and begins to morph in his arms, digging her nails, which have lengthened into cruel sharp claws, in his arms._ It's not real!_, he wishes he could scream, but he's too far gone.

There's no way out except through the horror.

"Just… lie down, okay?" He releases her and turns away, and suddenly she realizes something's wrong. She can see it in the tense muscles on his back. She can hear it in his voice. His hands clench into fists and his breathing becomes laboured as he fights back with all his might, but she can't lie here silently and not help in spite of what he told her to do._ This isn't the time to barge in_, her mind admonishes while she struggles to make a decision._ I can't just let him face whatever it is alone!_ she yells back.

"Peeta," she calls, her voice quivering. What had he said to her? "It's okay, we're okay now. We're safe. It's over. Peeta. Peeta." His back is rigid and his hands reach up to grip his head, clenching fistfuls of hair. "Peeta," she whispers, reaching for him. What could have triggered this…? Of course. The endless nights of her tossing and turning, kicking and screaming as the nightmares had their way with her. The nights he took her in his arms and soothed her back to sanity.

Now, he is the one who needs her - she can hear groans that give way to tortured cries as he yells in pain, "I shouldn't have helped you!" He's shaking, hard. Trembling even. It must be taking all his self-control not to turn around and strangle her. She's just begun forming his name again in desperation when he takes a strangled gulp of air and then releases his shoulders as he exhales a long, shaky sigh.

"Peeta?" She's apprehensive, twisting the fabric of her oversized shirt as she waits, her face dried and sticky.

"I heard you calling to me," he struggles to say as tears seep out of his tightly shut eyes. "Piles and piles of sheets. I couldn't breathe. You were smothering me with the blankets, laughing… there was blood coming out of your mouth. Your eyes were pure white, and you were laughing…" He chokes out, "And then I heard you calling me - it didn't make sense… it didn't make sense..." She wraps her arms around him and holds him, smoothens his messy hair, rests her head on his shoulder.

"I'm so sorry," he buries his face in his hands. "I promised myself I'd be there for you when the nightmares hit, but I couldn't."

"That's not true." Panic balloons in her chest, making it difficult to breathe. He will leave her - because he thinks he's a threat. But he's not, he's _not_. "Peeta, the reason why you had this flashback in the first place is because you woke me up and held me when I was having a nightmare. You _did_ comfort me. You _were_ there for me!" Her hand grasps his, but he pulls it away.

"Peeta?" she asks uneasily.

"Katniss… it isn't safe for me to be here. I don't want to wake up and find you dead. I should - I should go." He wipes his face resolutely. Never mind what he remembered Prim saying to him this afternoon, circumstances are different now and he will not lie here and tempt the remains of the mutt in him to strangle her in his sleep.

He is leaving her. And she _won't_ have it. She's not standing for it. "I dreamed…" she clears her throat and shuts her eyes, which send fresh tears running down her face. "I dreamed that Snow and Coin were shooting us. They were shooting _you_, and watching it was the pain in my wounds - multiplied a hundred times."

So many thoughts whirl in her head: she hates this, has never had any way with words, nothing she says can ever convey what she really wants to, how he must despise her… but she has to try.

"Peeta, I can't live without you. Please. Don't - don't let him take you away from me," she says simply, unable to keep her voice from breaking, reduced to a cracked whisper. A mirror-image of how she feels inside.

She climbs on his lap and sees tears in his eyes. "I don't want to hurt you," he whispers in defeat, but she kisses him quiet, their tears mingling on their faces and lips. She plants kisses on his jaw, down his neck, his collarbone, to his shoulder, to his chest. She is not a woman of words, that's true. But she can show him. "Nothing you do can hurt me, Peeta," she whispers back as her hands caress him. This time, he slowly guides her back to his lips, kissing her as gently as he can before sliding his tongue between the seam of her lips to ask permission.

She doesn't question it at all as she opens her mouth to him, because she knows he needs this. She knows he needs her. And she needs him. His hands hold her so tightly against him and his kisses taste like tears. Tears… and something else. She's felt it, hard against her thigh, and she feels it again. Desire. Kissing him goes from careful and gentle to sloppy and wet, and each time they break away they gasp and pant for air.

Well, this much is clear - she needs him, too. Surviving without her boy with the bread is not an option, and he must finally know it. Not through her pathetic attempt at comforting him with words a few minutes ago, but through the clinging desperation of her lips and her hands that she has clutched around his face so she can kiss him deeper because only he satisfies her. He breaks away, his chest heaving, and looks at her face, the moist lips, the bright eyes. "I don't want to leave you."

She tucks her head under his chin but keeps him in her arms so she can feel the rise and fall of his breathing and the warmth he gives her. "Then don't leave me. Please." She feels so tired. "Stay."

He takes a deep breath.

He allows his arms to pull her close. He lets his head trust his heart. "Always," he promises.

* * *

><p>Daylight brings soft rays of sunshine that rest on their sleeping bodies. Her eyes open to his sleeping face in front of her own and she lies there, silent, memorizing his long blond eyelashes, the pale white scar that slashes from his chin up to his temple, his gentle lips, his puckered brow. Except for the singing birds and soft breathing, there is absolutely silence. Her hand finds its way into his hair, combing her fingers through the blond locks, and his eyelashes flutter and untangle as he opens his eyes to see her. "Hi," he whispers, and his face still holds traces of sadness and worry.<p>

He won't lie that last night didn't traumatize him when it had so badly - he'd honestly thought that he was recovering from his flashbacks, but the very first nightmare she had when he could be there to comfort her proved him wrong.

But when she smiles back and whispers, "Hey," he begins to remember tears. And there were some of the sweetest kisses she'd ever given him. And a promise. The promise he'd made so many times before only to make it again last night.

There's that fragile little word again that he needs so badly -_ hope_. Seeing her grey eyes look straight into his remind him of Prim's words and now her own as well.

_I can't live without you._

_The only reason._

More than anything he is tired of believing that she is afraid of him, that he will hurt her. He wants to move past this, and the golden beams of light coming in from the window could not offer more hope.

_Whatever happens, it's alright_, they tell themselves firmly. _We have each other_.

And it's true, really - all that is left of the Games are nightmares, flashbacks, hollow spots the dead should be alive to fill. There is no use in holding on to people who cannot come back (she has learned this in full), and what are the nightmares and flashbacks but torturous reminders of the past when hope and a future is theirs for the taking?

Their hands clasp together, unwilling to let go, and the smile they exchange now holds little glimpses of hope.

He makes the call to Dr. Aurelius, who is delighted to hear of the progress and that, for the first time in months, they have something they'd like to do besides routine. The next train is due in two days time, the doctor states, and whatever they'd requested will be on it. She nods when he tells her, rolling her eyes and saying that she knows what Haymitch wants off the train. "Do you think we should go visit him?"

"It's only been a few days since I saw him last," he shrugs in response, "but sure."

Their old mentor has to be woken up with a cold tub of water, as usual; he's so passed out on the floor of the kitchen. After blind slashing with a spoon - also as usual except for his weapon; the knife had been lost in District 13 - he mops off his face with a dirty dishcloth and growls, "Will you two ever stop rousing me this way?"

"It's good to see you too, Haymitch," she counters drily, leaning against his table as he coughs and splutters and grips the side to haul himself up.

"Well, well," Haymitch is half sober, half still loaded, "the two of you finally made up, eh. That's a real - " hiccup - "relief, if you ask me. All this moping about, wanting each other but having all kinds of complications, huh, I always told you…"

Peeta gives a small, amused smile. "Always the optimist, Mr. Abernathy. Would you care for a loaf of bread?"

They eat breakfast together in spite of the horrific state of the kitchen. Haymitch asks questions and they do their best to answer honestly. How they're doing, how Peeta came to move into her house. Blanks in the mentor's knowledge that have to be filled, even if she doesn't exactly want Haymitch knowing that Peeta sleeps in her bed now, that they have reconciled their differences, probably even admitted they loved each other. This feels private because it's real, not fake - not a part to play in front of an audience but a genuine relationship. She doesn't want anyone to know. (But it's only fair to tell Haymitch, they owe him this at least.)

As they get up to go he tells them, "You kids won't be seeing me too much now. I've got my liquor and my geese, and both of you are old enough. You don't need my supervision, that's for sure. So don't expect me."

There's a strange pang of sadness and relief in her chest. Haymitch will finally stop gambling with their lives - but that means he's out of their lives, too. "You should come over sometime," she says.

He looks her in the eye. "Wonder if you're saying that to be nice, though I doubt it. You don't bother with being nice, do you?" He silences her annoyed retort with a wave of his hand. "Alright, alright, I'll come. When I feel like it."

"You should," Peeta persuades. "It's been awhile since I've played chess, and Katniss is lousy at it."

"_Am not_," she walks out of the door in a huff - honestly, the insults she can get just from being near that old drunkard!

Back in the kitchen, Haymitch begins to guffaw. "That's right, boy! This is when you know she's back to normal! Marvelous recovery, really." Peeta's laughter joins his, filling the dingy room with a form of happiness unknown to the house for years.

Autumn is nearly gone two days later, trees bare skeletons and a chilly wind blowing and getting under the warmest clothing. While she hunts for the last time, he stands on the station platform with Haymitch and waits for the train, for the paper and the pens and the brushes and the paint. They're apart, but the way they feel is the same - nervous about the book. What might remembering bring? Severe depression? Suicidal thoughts. Madness? All of these sound like medical terms and if Dr. Aurelius never said a thing about them and actually encouraged the writing of the book, then it must be okay. It must, it must, it must.

She chews her lip and sets a snare, wondering if it will catch anything with winter so near._ Writing everything is going to be hell. _Because writing means remembering - remembering warm, sticky blood on her face that the boy coughed out in the first Games. Remembering the nightmare of the Victory Tour, wearing a heart that didn't belong to her on a perfect, Capitol-designed sleeve. Remembering Mags's terrifying death dance as the acid worked its way into her. Remembering the horror of Messalla's face being melted off his skull that gruesome day underground. Remembering screaming for Gale after shooting Coin, begging for one shot, just one shot to end her life. Is this what she wants to do? Why shouldn't she bury these away? Why should she write them down?

_Everything about the book is good. It's the right thing to do. It's the only way you feel the people who lost their lives will be truly honoured. Then what are you afraid of? What are you so afraid of? _he asks himself.

_Flashbacks,_ a voice deep within him admits, and he shuffles uneasily, looking at his shoes._ Flashbacks. Twisted memories._ _And hurting her._

_Maybe this was a mistake._ She looks up at the barren trees. _Maybe it would be best to just forget._

But they know in their heart of hearts that they won't ever, and so Peeta collects the supplies gingerly and he and Haymitch hike back through the cold autumn wind.

Back at the house, alone, they glance at each other across the dining table. The paper, pens, paint, and brushes are set in the middle harmlessly, as if the knowledge about to be pressed into them were not highly flammable, dangerous to the fragile dandelion of hope in a barren field that pleads for more time, more healing before this is attempted.

"I want to do this," she tells him with as much courage as she can muster. "I need to do this."

He nods silently.

"If I don't do it now…" she takes a deep breath. "I'll never be brave enough. I'll always be running away." Where are these insights coming from? Who put them on her lips? She doesn't know, can't know, but it must be the right things to say because the task seems to make more sense after they leave her mouth.

He, on the other hand, the boy with the clever words, cannot form his thoughts into sentences, so he nods again.

She crosses the distance to the table, pulling out the chair which scrapes against the floor angrily. He winces, but she takes no notice.

She has to do this. First the notes, now the book - she has been strong once and she will be strong again.

He helps her bind the paper and lays a pen at her hand, but he's unwilling to touch the paints and brushes and watches her make the first entry entitled _The Reaping_ in silence.

"Will you help me?" she asks him quietly. "Could you sketch the Town Square and then paint it in here?"

This, without a doubt, is the deciding factor for him. If his girl can be brave then _so can he_. "Yes," he whispers.

He takes the pencil she offers him - accepts it, accepts his part in this project that will hurt them to heal them - and with a deep breath, begins to draw. Immediately a vivid picture of a mutt-like inhuman Katniss reaping children instead of Effie pounces at him, but he grips his pencil hard. She is fighting her own demons, by the evidence of fresh tears blotting the words _"and then I volunteered"_ on the paper. He can fight his own. He reaches out a hand towards her and she grasps it gratefully._ We have each other_.

The warmth of her palm against his gives him the strength to remember that she never did any reaping, never called his name on purpose. His fingers laced with her own finds her writing better than she thought possible. By sundown the entire page is finished, and the detailed paintings of Effie in her pink wig, a sobbing Prim, and the grimness of the Town Square find their places on the paper with gentle accuracy and not a trace of pain - the girl with the pen and the boy with the paintbrush are the ones who kept the pain away within themselves the whole while. They embrace without a word, finding solace in the realness of her face in his neck and his cheek against her hair. "Forget about dinner," she whispers. "Let's go to bed, Peeta." And they do.

He stirs halfway through the night, feeling emptiness in his arms. His eyes open groggily and he mumbles, "Katniss?" When there's no answer, he sits up. Buttercup is sleeping on her side of the bed again but the cat isn't what he's looking for. He sees her then, sitting on the floor with her back against the bed.

His prosthetic leg creaks as he settles down next to her. "What are you thinking about?" he murmurs, nudging her with his shoulder.

She leans against him, breathing in the faint smell of bread he always has. "How did you know I was thinking?"

He gives a quiet laugh. "Katniss, it's safe to say I know a lot about you and your reasons for sitting down here in the early hours of morning when you should be sleeping."

"I guess you're right," she allows. "And… I was thinking about Prim. Actually, I was dreaming about her before this and when I woke up, I couldn't fall back asleep."

"What was she doing?"

"Flying." She shuts her eyes, trying to bring the moment back to mind. "She was a little sparrow - we were both birds. She was flying against the wind and I couldn't help her because… I don't know," she ends in frustration.

"You said you were a bird," he reminds her. "Which one?"

She looks at him a little sadly. "The one I've always been called. A mockingjay."

"How did you know?"

"Because I saw my wings. They were black and white -" she pauses, suddenly remembering another detail. "And they were clipped."

He recognizes the significance of this. Katniss has been compared to a bird time and time again, what with her beautiful song and her irrepressible need to fly free of anything that could hold her down. And even in a dream, when she could really be a bird, someone had clipped her wings.

"I've meant to tell you something about Prim," he changes the subject tactfully, seeing that the significance of her clipped wings is wilting her like a flower under a merciless sun.

"Is there anything I don't already know?" she looks straight ahead, willing herself to regain composure.

"I think you may not know this," he tells her, and she doesn't say a thing so he takes it as assent to go on. "Back in the rebellion, while you and the rest of the Star Squad were making their way to the Capitol - she came to see me every afternoon."

He feels more than sees her smiling a little. "That sounds just like Prim. She _would_ do what we told her not to."

"That's why you're both sisters," he can't help but tease, and she slaps his arm lightly. "That's not funny."

There's laughter in her voice, so he could beg to differ, but he goes on with his recounting. "Those were the most precious moments I had in 13, when she came to see me. Haymitch was always passed out around that time so slipping in wasn't a problem."

She sits up with a jerk. "Did you hurt her?" she asks in a strained voice.

"I could never, Katniss. She's just one of those people that evil can never hurt…"

"… But can only kill," she finishes with a sigh. He lets her have a moment to let everything he's said register in her mind, and then she whispers, "What happened when she visited you?"

"We cried," he says drily, but she catches the faint and yet clear tone of wistfulness in his voice. He misses her. And she misses her. Wordlessly, she pulls him close and they hold on to each other, remembering Prim's face, her hair in two braids and her innocent grey eyes.

"You know," he slips a hand around her waist slowly. "You were so brave today. To work on the book."

"So were you." She closes her eyes tiredly. "You were what kept me going."

He chuckles and kisses her hair. "Really? I thought it was the other way round."

"Don't say that to make me feel better," she gives a weak smile in response. "Peeta… I don't want to do the next page tomorrow."

"That's fine. At least we've started. We can wait a few days, there's no hurry."

"There's no hurry," she repeats sleepily and cuddles close to him, her breathing slow and deep.

"Katniss?" he murmurs.

"Mm?"

"If I were a bird like you and Prim, which one would I be?"

She looks up at him with an endearing smile. "You'd be a yellow duck."

"Oh." he's crestfallen. "Not something majestic, like an eagle?"

"No... you could never be," she yawns. "Eagles are scary, they kill things, and they aren't cute in the least."

His delighted smile at her words is adorable - _it doesn't seem to take much to make him happy_, she thinks contentedly before drifting slowly but surely off to sleep with her head snuggled to his chest.

He stays seated there quietly for some time, stroking her hair softly as she exhales in little audible breaths. Buttercup stretches and purrs, dropping down lithely to cuddle up at his side as well, and he has to give a quiet laugh, wondering if everyone will be sleeping on the floor tonight. He lifts Katniss gently onto the bed, then Buttercup, who curls up at his side instead of Katniss's for the first time. He smiles, wraps his arms around his girl, and falls back asleep himself.

* * *

><p><em>We are X-rays of something broken<em>

_Cursive bloodlines write every forecast_

_An orchestration of dissonance and innocent surrender_

_When our color dies_

_We will bury the ashes of time_

_And we will earn new eyes_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Please leave encouraging reviews! I'm the world's best self-critic and good reviews really go a long way to helping me update faster. x


	3. Pure

**AN:** Well, suffice it to say that this is one of the M-rated chapters and I am nervous. I suppose I'm of the minority who believe that the process of intimacy, especially for Katniss, is a slow and frustrating one – fingers crossed that it's been written well enough! The song for this is **Desire by Deas Vail**, and the lyrics look confusing because they're sung in rounds – one by a girl and one by a boy (which is apt, no?). Please give it a listen, this is one of my favourite songs from Deas Vail.

Lastly, thank you so much to every single person who reviewed – this chapter is dedicated to you. x

* * *

><p><em>I don't know what love is<em>

_The truth is that I don't know, to be honest_

_It's possible that…_

_I don't want to turn away_

_I don't want to be afraid_

_I want you in every way_

_To come back the way you came_

_I don't know what love is_

_(I don't want to turn away,_

_I don't want to be afraid)_

_The truth is that I don't know, to be honest_

_(I want you in every way)_

_It's possible_

_(To come back the way you came)_

_Fire, burning on desire_

_Fire, burning on desire_

* * *

><p>Snow begins to fall on the day he teaches her how to ice a cake. The kitchen is warm, the oven glows, and he is frosting cookies when she walks in to drop the lightest of kisses on his cheek and watch him. "Winter's finally here," she remarks, and he surprises her when he laughs outright.<p>

"Did I say something funny?" She arches an eyebrow.

He shakes his head, still grinning. He loves winter. His favourite season. "Not really. But it's funny to hear something so normal after everything we've gone through…"

"It's as if it shouldn't matter anymore," she catches his drift. "But the weird thing is that it does."

He straightens up and sets his frosting bag down. "Looks like there really is life after the rebellion, huh?"

"I guess so." She nibbles her upper lip, worried. "Is it strange that I feel guilty about living after the rebellion?"

"You feel guilty?" He looks at her in concern before taking a hot cookie tray out of the oven. "This is why we rebelled, Katniss. For a life to live, free of the Games and of the threat of our children being part of it."

"Our children, huh." She shoots him a wry glance before pulling a flour-covered little footstool from the corner to sit down.

"You know I can't lie to you." He smiles bashfully and looks back at his cookies. "I think about it a lot."

She nods, pondering. They're not working on the book today, and the nightmares and flashbacks have been nowhere to be found for the past few days. She's not putting any hope in that they'll never return, but heaven knows she's weary of thinking about them at all. The moment she replays a horrific dream in her mind, the air becomes thinner and harder to breathe and she wonders if she'll have to grip a chair, like Peeta. Today has such potential of being just _normal_.

She wants, for once, to think about family - not children of her own, of course, she can't wrap her mind around that thought - but she wants... to _remember_. To remember what it was like before the Games - an age of innocence untouched by the oppression.

"Tell me about your family, Peeta," she whispers.

He goes back to frosting the cookies, intricate white snowflakes in icing. "My family? Well... My father will always be the one I'll miss most, before my eldest brother." He looks out of the window, lost in thought, and she wonders if he's looking for more inspiration for his cookies or if he's remembering himself years before, on a day like this… was he frosting cookies with his father? Mixing batter with his brother? The glow from the oven casts a warm light over his face, making his blue eyes dance.

"There was this one time, the first time ever," he muses, "when Mother let me do the expensive cupcakes."

"I thought you always did them," she interjects.

"Nope, my eldest brother did them before me. I come next because my second brother makes a complete mess out of icing."

She vaguely remembers a laughing boy, running through roads and smacking into the sides of buildings and never being without at least one bruise from wrestling. "I think I could imagine that."

He shoots her an amused glance before continuing. "Dad joined me, and we were both having so much fun with the batter and the icing that we never even noticed he'd turned up the heat so high for a whole batch of apple pie that happened to be in the oven - he thought the cupcakes were in there."

The thought of Mr. Mellark laughing with his son while they baked warms her heart. "He didn't get into trouble, did he?" she asks anxiously.

"Well - normally _one_ burnt pie is acceptable, but a whole batch means you're dead. Poor Dad, he was so scared that Mother would come back from the square any second then. But we raced to prepare a whole new batch of pie in time and we actually _did_ it!"

She watches his smile lights up his whole face at the remembrance of rushing around the kitchen, throwing pastry and apples everywhere. "_And_," he lifts a finger, "we even fed all the evidence of the first batch to the pigs just before Mother came in the door."

They can't help laughing at the mere thought of the pigs eating burnt apple pie and Mrs. Mellark completely clueless at the doorstep. "They threw up, too, after that," he tells her, still laughing, while she shakes her head and wipes her eyes. "How could you stand her?" she demands. "Even your father was afraid of her!"

He reflects. "Not really... He's stood up to her before. Rye and I were decorating a cake for Mayor Undersee's anniversary, and my brother, he accidently put blue food colouring into the icing bag instead of red for the roses. Mother had a fit, but Dad helped us through and fibbed that there really were roses in that violent shade of blue. If the Mayor noticed," he chuckles, "he certainly never said a thing."

"I'm sure the taste would've been the same no matter what the colours," she says in disgust of his mother. _Why do people harp on the littlest details?_ she fumes on behalf of him. He was probably a better baker and _definitely_ a better decorator than… all those other people!

"Yes, but you see - Katniss, it's an aesthetic thing, cake decoration," he tries to explain as she stands up with a start and marches towards him. "It's the look that matters, and I understand why Mother was upset -"

"Just - stop, okay?" She grabs his face in exasperation, staring into his wide blue eyes for a split second before kissing the breath right out of him in a total _stop-talking-I-don't-want-to-hear-your-excuses-for-that-woman_ kind of way. "_No one_ has the right to talk down to you," she pants furiously when she breaks away."I won't stand for _anyone_ blaming you for something you didn't do. Don't shield them, Peeta."

He's panting too, touched that she would care so much about the times he was overlooked or looked down upon but also inwardly enjoying the spontaneous way she'd pounced at him. _Katniss all over_.

"Well, say something!" She gestures wildly. Her face is burning and she really wishes she hadn't done something as impulsive - and embarrassing - as that.

He gives her a lopsided smile before saying, "Do that again?"

"Do what?" She wrinkles her forehead.

He widens his eyes innocently before pulling her back into him and continuing right where they left off, lifting her up and setting her on the counter so she wraps her legs around his waist and presses into him. They moan simultaneously and he kisses her harder, trying to satisfy himself, only he feels the opposite of satisfied. Her lips are bruised and puffy when she pulls back and he groans because all he wants to do is keep kissing them, but she distracts him when she gasps, "You taste sweet."

This brings him right back down to earth because he's going way too fast with something even he isn't sure about. He has to slow down for her sake and his own.

"… It must be the icing," he answers deliberately, and licks some onto his mouth before taking her face back in his hands and kissing her gentler, slower than before, which is just as well because the icing is annoyingly slippery. She hums in agreement and licks his lips clean. "Did you make it yourself?" she breathes, pulling back.

He's glad she's asking him something because he desperately needs to be distracted. "Yeah, I've always made my own icing."

There's a sudden panic in her eyes that tells him she's realized where things could lead to if they kept this up - and he can see she wants to evade it. He can't really describe how he feels at that - relieved that at least he knows what she's comfortable with him doing so he doesn't overstep his boundaries, and disappointed because being with her in this way is so new and exciting and he loves making her feel good, making her forget herself.

Can he honestly be blamed for feeling this way? He doesn't want to know, in case the answer is that yes, he's a disgustingly hormonal boy who can't even let his traumatized girl on fire heal wholly before springing on her.

"So," he loosens his hold on her waist and clears his throat. "Before you flew at me just now -" a laugh and a blush from her which he finds adorable but pushes aside, _stop thinking about that, Peeta, self-control you idiot_ - "I was telling you about cake decoration. And it _seems_, Miss Everdeen, that you might not understand the importance of the craft, so I shall take it upon myself to educate you."

"How splendid," she exaggerates in a Capitol accent, but slides her feet down to the floor anyway. He has always known that he's a good actor, but that she isn't aware of a thing just cements the fact. "What are you going to teach me?"

"How to ice a cake." He gestures to a sponge cake cooling on a rack nearby.

"You baked cake?" she asks in surprise, which takes him aback for a second. _Oh_, he realizes. He's never made a single cake since they came back to District 12... until today.

"Yeah, I did," he smiles._ Looks like there's life after the rebellion._ "Here, what do you want to ice onto it?"

"I don't know," she mumbles, unsure of how to even begin. "I don't do decoration."

"Well, you're about to," he reminds her. "How about some flowers? They're pretty easy and it's not like you don't see them in the woods."

_Flowers_. Her head seems to do a three-hundred-sixty spin and comes abruptly to a stop, making her feel dizzy. "I want to do primroses and rue flowers," she whispers after a thought.

He sips a breath in painful understanding. All her questions about his family make sense. Her tribute to two little wisps of girls who should be here with them - two girls who could have been each others' sisters, _family_. Now it's just him and her, two broken people slowly mending, but he knows she wants to remember innocence.

Youth.

Blond hair in two braids and brown eyes glinting from the highest orchard tree, a shirt untucked at the back and a melody whistled to signal _good and safe_. "I think those are beautiful flowers to choose," he tells her honestly with a catch in his voice as these memories come rushing back. "Can you remember how they look?"

She chews her lower lip. "Only a little. I don't know the detailed bits."

"I can help you there," he promises, and they make more icing in shades of soft blushing pink and yelow and delicate off-whites and cornflower blues. When the cake is in front of her and she's clenching the icing bag in her hand, she freezes and looks at him with such misery he has to wonder what's wrong.

"I'm not an artist," she sighs. "I don't create things. I just kill them."

He rubs the tense muscles in her shoulders gently, helping her release them. "Hey," he says. "You know that's not true."

"It is."

"Think about it, Katniss." He runs his hand along her braid. "You created peace for Panem, and," he whispers, "that's just about the most beautiful thing anyone could ask for."

"I had to kill to bring peace." It's her turn to look out the window to the snow falling silently. "That's wrong."

He lifts her chin to look at him. "And where would we survivors be, Katniss?" he asks her quietly. "Where would everyone who still lives be, if lives were not sacrificed?"

She sees centuries of Hunger Games, centuries of oppression. Once again, he has her there. With a deep breath, she turns her attention back to the cake and tries to remember the delicate outline of a primrose, but the icing bag is so unsteady in her trembling hands. She'd never known this would require so much concentration, so much accuracy - almost like learning how to shoot her first arrow, but worse.

"I will never underestimate cakes ever again," she gives a shaky laugh, but he can see she's pitifully nervous under her attempt at humor. He comes up behind her, his chest to her back, his arms around hers, and his hands wrap around her own, steadying her and helping her squeeze icing out of the bag and onto the soft green under-layer of the cake.

"Breathe," he murmurs from the side of her head, and she lets out the air she wasn't aware she'd been holding in.

His hands are just - magic, causing primroses to flower with all the grace and innocence of Prim herself, coaxing rue flowers to blossom and bud sweetly in remembrance of the petals that surrounded Rue as she lay in her eternal sleep.

"It's beautiful," she breathes as his hands guide hers gently.

"It's for them," he softly replies into her hair.

It's his own version of a kiss planted on three fingers and then held out in salute - a half-hour long labour of love, the equivalent of a thousand kisses, a thousand handshakes, millions of nods of appreciation and hugs given tightly as tears stream down faces. What was originally just her tribute has become his as well.

The cake being finally finished, they step back and survey the masterpiece of their hands - a bed of magnificent flowers. Somehow it isn't just for Prim and Rue anymore, but for all the people they'd lost to the war. He feels a sudden aching urge to start the next entry of the book, call back the memories to mind as old friends and dearly loved treasures, not dangerous flashback triggers.

"How will we eat this?" she laments.

He keeps her in his arms, lowers his lips to her ear as if to say something sweet and sentimental, and murmurs, "We can let Haymitch have it."

Her answer is a laugh that bubbles out of her so lightly that - _BAM_ - nothing else matters, he's a complete goner once again. "We will _not_ let Haymitch have a thing," she tries to say firmly over the smile in her voice, and he can't help remembering the way she kisses him, wishing she'd do it again.

It was probably the intense amount of emotions throughout the process of icing the cake, and the numbing grief of the painful memories that worked their way into his mind. Maybe it was holding her the whole time and not kissing her once. Whatever the cause, he definitely feels like kissing her now, and her grey eyes that sparkle and snap merrily at the thought of Haymitch gorging on their precious cake are not helping one bit.

_Girl on fire_, he thinks again. _Oh, Cinna, you could never have been more correct_.

Meanwhile she's going on, absolutely unaware, "Well - maybe he can have a small slice."

"Hm?" he mutters, and she frowns at him.

"Were you listening to me?" she accuses.

"Not really," he tells her. "You have pretty eyes."

She groans, but the blush on her face is a better indicator of how she really feels. "_Peeta_."

He grins back at her.

"I don't trust you when you smile like that," she tries to say steadily as he steps closer, making her move backwards. "When you smile at me that way, I know you're planning something _evil_."

Her back hits the wall and he pulls her flush against him, making her gasp as he nuzzles her ear with a satisfied sigh and kisses it softly.

"This is evil?" He pretends to be hurt. Her choice of words is amusing, especially when "evil" is something more on like President Snow's level - but he doesn't mind because it just goes to show how easily he can make her lose her wits.

"_So_ - evil," she tries to breathe in reply, but the way he's kissing her neck sends her brain into a complete muddle, and she does all the wrong things - like holding her breath till it comes out in soft, slow moans, letting her hands pull his head closer, and allowing him to tug her knee up and wrap her leg around his waist so he can press closer against her.

She sighs in ecstasy and lets him kiss her; the friction they've got from moving against each other can barely let her register how to kiss him back but he doesn't mind, sliding one hand up her thigh and undoing her braid gently with the other so her hair falls around her shoulders. He buries his face in the soft strands as she hold him to her like he's a lifeline, the anchor to her fragile little fishing boat.

Her hands are itching to take off his shirt already - should she? Should she not? - when the doorbell rings - not one, not two, but three obnoxiously _loud_ times.

They break apart and groan. "_Haymitch_."

Then there's a rattling of a key in the lock all the way from the living room and they groan a second time, disentangling themselves, because he must've made a duplicate key behind their backs - no way would they be giving him one themselves. For all they care on a day like this, Haymitch could stand outside in the snow and ring the doorbell all he wanted; but here he is, stomping into the kitchen and breathing heavily.

"Weeeell," he slurs. The place is a mess, there's trays and trays of cookies here and the flower cake there and flour and bread and dough and sugar and icing bags strewn all around, but of course he's focused on their flushed faces when he leers, "Aren't you two _busy_."

She begins clearing dirty mixing bowls and trays and dumping noisily them into the sink, not bothering to say hello. Washing up is Peeta's job, but she just needs an excuse not to say anything to rude old mentors who don't have the decency to give them any privacy. Peeta gives her a subtle side-glance before folding his arms and sighing. "Hey, Haymitch."

"You know, I did recall you asking me to come over one of these days for dinner and chess," Haymitch says pointedly. "Or maybe I misheard."

"Maybe you did. Who gave you our key anyway?" she scowls, scrubbing dried batter off a plate. She would much rather be using her hands to take off Peeta's shirt than hold a soapy sponge and face the prospect of continuing this only in bed later at night.

And Haymitch knows exactly what she's thinking.

"Oh, I have to check up on you two. It appears to me that your girl has a lot of sexual frustration," he tells Peeta outright, smirking at the outraged face Katniss gives him - _sexual frustration_? Could there be a _worse_ way to describe the way she felt when she was interrupted from the intimacy she and Peeta were slowly exploring? He's deeply sarcastic when he adds, "My advice is that you should take care of that soon."

"I _was_," Peeta replies shortly as he wipes the table and pulls open the fridge door to set the cake inside. "Until you interrupted us."

"Ah, you'll thank me later," Haymitch waves aside the tidal wave-like aura of disapproval descending upon him. "What's for dinner?"

She glares at him. "Bread, one of your favourite geese, and your head."

The mentor laughs. "I've always liked you, sweetheart." There's something in the wink he gives her that makes her start to wonder what he's getting at.

Realization is a little pinpoint of light at the end of the tunnel. He's actually trying to help in what would seem, on the surface, like the worst way to do it. As usual, the two of them see eye to eye - Haymitch is in no way done manipulating, but his objective she can definitely live with this time. In spite of herself she begins to smile back, imagining the darkness in her room, roaming hands and lips and sweet little flames that burn on desire.

She's always been too apprehensive and Peeta's always been too patient with her, but what Haymitch is doing, for her boy's sake more than anything, is stirring up the faintly glowing embers, spreading the heat, upsetting the slow burn of the flame and exciting it larger, _goading_ her on to realize that she's been taking way too much time trying to wrap her mind around this.

He's annoying her into understanding who the hot wetness between her legs is for - Peeta. And the challenge, now that he's successfully done it? _Wait until after I leave_.

_Bring it on, Haymitch_, she thinks in determination.

* * *

><p>Of course things wouldn't go according to plan. It's eleven at night and her eyes keep closing. She's dispirited and tired watching Peeta and Haymitch play the most boring and tedious game in the world, and even though Peeta's close to both checkmate <em>and<em> subsequently kicking Haymitch out of the door so they can have their fun, she's not sure if she even wants to go along with that after all or just curl up so his kisses send her to sleep instead. She glances at him to see that he's nodding off waiting for Haymitch to make a move._ Alright then_, she thinks despairingly._ That makes two of us_. And she lets her eyelids slip close.

It must be sometime later when through the haze of her sleep she hears quiet voices, a door shutting gently. She opens her eyes a little just as he lays her on the bed and then goes into the bathroom to change. _Who cares about changing_, she thinks vaguely. _We've spent so many nights of our lives with our filthiest clothes on…_

The bed feels too comfortable and she could care less about putting on new clothes, but when he comes back out and lies down with her, pulling her back into his arms so her nose is pressed to his chest again, he smells so good and clean she starts to wake up a little.

"I probably smell terrible," she tells him in a scratchy, sleepy voice.

She can feel his laughter rumbling through his chest. "Maybe," he agrees.

"Should I go put on some clean pajamas or something?"

He shrugs, or tries to as much with his arms around her. "You could. I don't mind, whatever you do."

Or maybe… there's a thin camisole under her shirt she wouldn't mind sleeping in. She sits up and pulls her shirt off but somehow the camisole comes off too, and if she was sleepy a few moments ago, she's woken right up. "Oh, darn - don't look!"

Well, it's not like he can see very much in the distorted dimness of the moonlight shining through the snow-frosted window, but saying something like that when she's accidently stripped is necessary. As she pulls the camisole back on and slips out her bra from underneath it, she reflects that there's too much to see that she _would've_ shown him under the afore-planned circumstances, but not anymore, not now. Scars, lab-grown skin, discolourations.

_Way to go, Haymitch_, she thinks sourly. _Egg us on and then play chess way past bedtime._

He has his hands over his eyes as he assures her, "Not looking." The truth, though, is that he wishes he were. He wishes she trusted him enough not to care. He's seen her filthy, bruised, bloody, and worst of all, a fire mutt. He's seen the flesh peeling off her, seen blood running out of her most vicious wounds and her beautiful braid singed off with bald patches on her scalp, but now he realizes that all of that is _nothing_, that he has yet to see her at her very most vulnerable.

What if she never lets him see her after all? What if she only ever wants to kiss him, move against him? No, that can't be right - they were going faster, deeper today, he'd felt it. So _why_? Why?

He stifles a groan. He doesn't want to believe that the only thing he can think about is making her feel good; he's more than that, more than a primal creature with animal-like pleasures that demand to be satisfied. He'd wait forever, of course, but no one had ever said it would be this hard. He's tired of pretending, so he lets down the wall he'd put up when they were in the kitchen and allows himself a minute of honest disgruntlement.

Tracing her finger along her brutish tracker scar, she looks at him in concern, biting the inside of her cheek. Now that he lets her, she can feel his quiet frustration and she lets her hand rest sympathetically on his hair, smoothing strands away from his forehead to soothe him. Her poor, selfless Peeta, she thinks guiltily - he's waited far too long, in her opinion, for something like this. There is no other way to respond to how he's never moving further than where she allows him to go than openmouthed, dumbfounded admiration of _perfection_. Perfection unknown of a seventeen-year-old teenage boy who could have had any town girl he'd felt like picking.

What really cements this, though, is his never-ending patience and her own fidgety restlessness. She can't even begin to imagine herself in his position - switching roles would quite frankly impossible. She would've pounced on him before he was even ready for a large step forward like this, or even worse, she would've given up on him and called him a coward and claimed that if he loved her he'd be all over her.

He has put up with all of her mood swings, all her panic attacks which she hastily conceals under some pretense of shyness, and has never told her once that he's going to look for another faster, easier girl with golden hair and shining eyes that aren't like her own flat grey ones.

When will she ever deserve him?

She decides that they have to release this pent-up frustration a little, somehow. It isn't any easier for him than it is for her. "I think we've turned the heater temperature up too high," she says with intention. "The first snow hasn't been as cold as we'd thought."

"Do you want me to go downstairs and lower it?" he asks. He's determined to prove to himself that no matter how much she unconsciously tempts him, he is and will always be a gentleman.

"It's fine. I was just wondering if you feel too warm in that shirt."

He does feel hot, actually, but since when does he have permission to sleep with his shirt off? "I'm fine, really Katniss," he assures her.

"No you're not," she tells him. If she were to be truthful, she wants him to take it off as much as she knows he does, but he's always so _respectful_ of her and she doesn't know how to phrase something so awkward. Curse this incoherency. "Come on, Peeta. Don't guys... sleep shirtless or something? You haven't done that once since you've moved in."

And just like that, he has her permission. What's keeping him from ripping the thing off he's not sure, but he still feels guilty about wanting something shallow like being half-naked (and as a result, completely comfortable) around her. He looks at her, at as much of her face as he can see in the dim light. "Can I?"

She tilts her head and gives him an inquiring look.

"Can I take it off?" he mumbles.

She gives him a nod - no going back from here - and he sits up too, fingers clutching the hem of his cotton shirt so he can pull the offending garment off and leave it on the floor. The air against his bare skin is an amazing feeling, but what's _even better_, he realizes, as he looks at her in her camisole and she looks at him with his shirt off, is that tonight marks the first time they're in bed together in a completely intentional state of undress. The first time they don't care anymore about nonsensical formalities like sleeping fully clothed, because it's just him and it's just her and no one else. They're not going to do anything tonight, but this just feels good.

And right.

And - _oh_, _wow_, he thinks in a daze as he watches the thin strap of her camisole slip down her shoulder. She leaves it that way, another silent, unspoken message that she's tired of caring too, and when he reaches to move it back up her shoulder for her, her fingers stop his. "It's okay, Peeta," she gives him a small smile.

When he hugs her close he swears he can feel her nipples on his chest through the paper-thin layer of cloth they have between them, and if he'd known this would be waiting for him tonight… no, he can't think straight. It's too amazing.

Her fingers stroke his cheek with a shy smile and she kisses him because this really was long overdue. "Work on the book tomorrow?"

"Definitely," he manages to say.

He'll take this slow and keep his hopes in check, but tonight is well worth savouring. He doesn't want anything - _anything_ - more now than holding her in his arms, her hand shyly against his bare chest, as they drift off to sleep.

Because this is finally real. And that's enough for him.

* * *

><p>The next morning he's up before the sun to bake, and when he passes through the living room he makes sure he turns down the heater so they won't go as far as sweating in the winter - last night had been nearly unbearable in its warmth.<p>

Now, even when cold winter daylight begins to filter in the kitchen windows at the end of his baking, the temperature's cool enough that he can do something he's loved ever since he was small - wearing something warm. Katniss accuses him of being a winter/cold weather person, which he agrees is true since he can't sleep with the windows closed and his shirt on most nights (though he's kept it on every time he's slept with her until yesterday).

Even if it's just a sweater this time because the heater's on, it still brings back memories of watching snow fall while he curls up in front of a fire _between_ baking shifts (never _during_, because his mother would find him with her rolling pin). And there would be the warm smell of baking bread. Always. He sniffs the air in appreciation - he's lived up to his little tradition, even going the second mile with an apple pie - the last apples from the autumn pickings that the bombing of 12 had thankfully left unharmed. She can't help but smile when she pads into the dining room to see two apple pie slices on her mother's favourite plate, along with bread, butter, honey, and even waffles.

"Everything looks so good," she tells him honestly. "And there's so much of it."

He pulls out her chair for her at the table with a smile. "Well, it's finally winter and... I just don't want you to be hungry."

"This must be why you like winter so much," she teases. "You get to eat more."

He shoots a hurt look in her direction. "I can stop making so much if you want."

She shakes her head, laughing. "Oh, Peeta. Don't ever stop."

Later that morning finds them cuddled up on the sofa, the book between them. They're determined not to work in the order of events and let the memories choose them instead of the other way around, and so the header, in her best handwriting, reads the name _Thresh_.

Peeta has captured his likeness so amazingly in a detailed painting right in the middle of the page, and she writes everything she remembers about the boy who had owed her "just this once" for Rue around his picture. Peeta embellishes every word she's finished writing with tiny watercolour dottings of wheat and grain, and even incorporates glimpses of a field - the field Thresh had escaped into which became his territory in the arena. At the end of the page, two of his words that she will always remember are sketched with detail and skill: "For Rue."

"You never told me why," Peeta remembers, cleaning his paintbrush.

She looks at him with a slight frown. "Why… what?"

"When we were in the Games. You grieved for him when he died and you said I wouldn't understand."

She closes her eyes and takes herself back to the cave, to the first Games which she's spent most of her morning in already, thinking so much about Thresh and how the topography of the arena had been kind to him. She imagines that it's not snow falling outside but rain, floods of it, and she's not sitting on a comfortable sofa in the living room of her house in the Victor's Village, instead lying on a slab of hard rock, wounded and hungry. Only _one_ thing is still the same out of the stark contrast she manages to paint in her mind - Peeta. He was there with her, and he's here with her now. Even the way she sees him is different now, she realizes, and in this she finds her answer for him.

"I said that because I was stupid," she admits, glad she was given the umpteenth chance to be right here with him, at the end of all things and forward into the rest of their lives. "I thought you were too much of a townie to understand what it was like to owe someone something."

"I still don't," he reminds her. "I don't understand the concept of owing at all."

She lays the book along with his paints and brushes on the coffee table to dry so she can lie back comfortably with him and find his hand, intertwining their fingers. "It's true, but I was wrong to blame it on your class. You don't believe in owing… because you're just you, Peeta."

"You know," he tucks a stray lock that fell out of her braid gently behind her ear, frowning in thought. "I think that's the nicest thing I've heard in awhile."

"And why is that?" She finds the crook of his neck, presses a small kiss to where it meets the beginning of his shoulder. He smiles, circling his arm around her.

"Because… I've really been myself all along then, haven't I? I've stayed true to who I've always wanted to be. I didn't let them change me," he ends in a whisper, a beam on his face.

The snow is piled high and no one will be going anywhere - her chance to tell him what's been on her mind for the past few months. She reaches for her cup so he doesn't see her face. "Peeta…"

"Hmm?" He's sketching Thresh's face on a drawing pad.

"I just," she twirls her braid nervously and takes a sip of hot chocolate. "I feel like I owe this to you -"

"No owing," he says with a smile, adding swift strokes to his picture.

She insists. "But all the same, I want to tell you that… that I trust you now, Peeta. I'll always trust you."

He looks at her then, his heart suddenly lodged in his throat, and waits for her to go on.

"Ever since the Games it's been real hell not knowing if I should trust you or not, then in the Quell it didn't matter that you were the only person I trusted because one of us had to die. And then after your time in the Capitol I was forced back to not trusting you…" She gulps back a hard lump and he puts aside his drawing pad and lays a hand on her shoulder. "Hey. You don't have to…"

"I want to." She catches his hand. "I want you to know that after all we've been through I know who you are inside and out, and you'll always be an excellent ally,_ better_ than an ally to me. I _trust_ you, Peeta."

He looks at his lap. "Even when I might have flashbacks and do something to you?" he whispers.

"That included." She brushes his hair out of his eyes before leaning in so close she feels his breath on her lips. "You deserve this," she whispers.

She knows where this will lead, or a little of where this will lead. And, along with her trust, she's giving it to him at long last.

He looks back up at her with so much love in his eyes. "Thank you." His lips find hers gently, achingly, because once again, words fail him. "You still don't know the effect you can have," he whispers as he undoes her braid, nuzzles her now loose hair, and breathes in its scent deeply.

She smiles and tugs him up for another kiss which he willingly gives, sliding his hands around her waist and pulling her closer so she's on his lap._ Better than an ally._

He loves the taste of her, he thinks hazily as he sucks on her lower lip and vaguely realizes that she's uttered a soft moan. Her fingers tug at the roots of his hair and _oh, that feels good_. "I like that," he breathes, and she does it again with a breathless chuckle.

_I trust you now. _His lips are trailing down her neck to her collarbone, and even though goose bumps appear on her bare shoulder the moment he pulls down her sleeve, the wet kisses he presses there seem to take care of the problem.

She sighs, wrapping her legs around his waist and pressing her chest closer to his. She needs to get closer, _closer_; then he gives a strangled gulp because well, besides the intimidating close proximity between their lower halves, she's slipped her icy hand under his woolen sweater and undershirt.

"You okay?" she pants. Her chest is heaving against his own, he can feel her heartbeat through her breasts, and she's _so close_ to him, _everywhere_.

It's distracting.

It's amazing.

He does his best to nod and smile as he croaks, "Yeah, I'm great actually. I just think…" Actually, he can't think of anything except her very kissed parted lips, but he does his best to ignore the temptation. "Do you want to turn up the heat?"

She frowns. "What?"

Then he realizes that his sentence has way too many unintended implications. "The temperature, the temperature! I can go adjust the heater now so we're not so cold."

"Oh." She blushes again. "That's actually a great idea." _So then I can take off your sweater, right? _Her eyes ask shyly.

He grins, somehow catching the unspoken question. "Be right back, sweetheart."

"Where are we going with this?" she mumbles under her breath as he crosses the room to the thermometer by the door. Not that she's nervous, but there are so many firsts she has yet to experience. Uncharted territory. All she has to go by are kisses and pretend caresses for a swooning audience.

But he's Peeta and whatever he does is led by how he much he loves her, and if that's the only qualification needed, then she loves him for sure, she knows she does. She knows she wants him.

He sits back down on the sofa with a satisfied sigh and pulls her onto his lap, finding her ear with his lips and murmuring, "Where were we?" She turns her head to capture his mouth, her ankle tucked under his thigh. Her arms go around his shoulders and her fingers play with the curls at the nape of his neck.

"The room feels warmer now," she mumbles against his lips, sliding a hand back under his sweater to feel the shirt beneath; then she lifts the shirt too to rest her hand on his bare skin.

"In more ways than one," he agrees, a hand in her hair and another caressing her hip, eager for her touch. Her fingertips moisten as they trace scars and muscles, a navel, before moving up higher to rest on his chest. Her other hand finds the hem of his sweater.

"Can I…" she pulls away to watch his blue eyes, the delicate irises around his pupils. He nods, his face a rosy pink, and she lifts the sweater and undershirt over his head.

This isn't the first time she's seen him shirtless of course, but it_ is_ the first time she _herself_ has taken off his shirt for the sole purpose of looking at him and feeling him. _And kissing him_, she adds, placing her lips over a scar at the top of his chest and licking with the tip of her tongue.

He inhales sharply and blushes when she looks at him in concern. "I'm fine," he reassures her, and she smiles, feeling the firm muscles under her hands relax.

Hearing him react makes her feel… strange. Good. _So_ good. A warmth not unlike the one on the beach in the Quell is beginning to burn hot and furious in the pit of her stomach. Her hands learn him shyly, making him sigh and tangle his fingers in her hair. Broad shoulders. A strong chest. The boy who was once as thin as a rake is gaining back what he lost.

Her kisses follow the path of scars down his chest and feeling bold, she presses a chaste pair of lips to his nipple. He gasps in pleasure and she pulls back immediately, ignoring the heat traveling lower, lower down her body. "I'm sorry! Did I do something wrong?"

Their faces are both red but he shakes his head, his voice already husky and his eyes darkening with need. "That was… wow… but aren't you having all the fun here?"

"How?" Her voice is so bewildered.

The only thing he can think - apart from how much he wants to touch her - is that he's _always_ been right about her being pure. Here she is,_ turning him on so badly_, and she doesn't know a thing.

He's going to change that.

"I'll show you." He helps her lie down so she's comfortable against the pillows, and then very carefully, very lightly he's on top, resting his weight on her but gently. She wants to gasp at how solid he is but the kisses he's slowly placing everywhere and his roaming hands already claim the prize.

His hand slides up her body to cup her breast and the fire inside her spreads, finding its way between her legs. Their lips meet in an openmouthed kind of desperation, hot and wet. "I love you," he sighs, and the feeling between her legs only intensifies as she moans the same three words back.

Her arms and legs wrap around him; she wants him closer, _needs_ him closer, and she can't control her whimpers. His hand finds her breast again while the other fingers the hem of her sweater, and this time she nods before he can even catch his breath to ask permission. She lifts her arms, thankful the garment is hiding her face - and her blush - then he pulls it off and dumps it on the floor triumphantly.

"A _bra_, Katniss?" She wasn't wearing one last night! _This isn't fair_, he thinks in despair - _who knows how to take this thing off?_

His inexperienced fingers fumble with the clasp and the look on his face is so doleful she has to help him, fingers over his, while laughing through her nervousness. "Cut me some slack! I don't expect this to happen every day - _oh _- "

"Maybe we can change that," the bra falls to the floor, gladly abandoned, while he lowers his head and kisses the underside of one of her breasts and nuzzles it softly with his nose by way of saying thanks, his hand cupping the other and kneading gently so that she can't help but moan as her whole body tingles like a fire threatening to consume her.

"Why are you..." she gasps and holds his head close, her legs tightening around his hips so he moans a little too. She remembers the padding Cinna had to put in her dress - as if what she had wasn't satisfactory. "They're - they're not even big or anything…"

"Shhh." He finds a delicate pink nipple and glances up at her sweetly before he takes it between finger and thumb, pressing lightly. "You're beautiful, Katniss."

"_Peeta_!" Her hips buck up so fast they collide with his, and in the heat of the moment they both laugh - bright laughter that fills the room.

"How did that feel?" he asks her mischievously, leaning his forehead against hers and giving her another heated kiss.

She pulls his head close so she can kiss him back deeper. "That felt amazing," she breathes.

"Am I going too fast for you?" he asks bashfully into the freckles and scars on her shoulder before reaching up to give her an apologetic kiss. His bare skin against her own is an indescribable feeling.

"You took me by surprise," she admits, running her fingers through his hair. "But I really liked it."

He finds her hand and plants kisses on her fingertips. "I'm sorry, Katniss. I've just," he blushes, "I've just wanted this for so long and I got carried away…"

She lifts his chin in surprise, and their eyes lock. "You _wanted_ this?" Because she's honestly never thought about it seriously until the past few days.

He drops his gaze, his cheeks crimson. "Yeah. I've always dreamt of being able to make you feel... loved. And beautiful. And special. I've felt so stupid saving myself for you before, but - but right now - anything you want from me… it's yours, Katniss. I promise. Anything."

_Anything._

His words hang in the air, tangible, so tender her head feels feather-light as if the world has turned upside down somehow, she's caught in an in-between universe, and the only thing that registers in her mind is the perfection of her boy with the bread.

When he finally looks back up at her, her face is flushed, her lips parted and her eyes glistening. "Peeta Mellark," she says thickly, "I will never deserve you."

"You don't have to," he says sincerely. "It's not a question of deserving."

She shakes her head, caresses his face with trembling fingers. "I will never understand how you could love someone like me."

"Because you don't know how beautiful you are," he whispers tenderly, turns his face in her hand to kiss her palm. "Let me show you, Katniss. Let me show you. Please."

Her lips form a tiny, apprehensive _okay_. He lays her gently back down on the sofa and the look on his face is so sweet her toes can't help but curl; then his finger travels lightly down her forearm and he gives her a smile, lips quirked up at the corners, and whispers, "Relax, sweetheart."

She unclenches her fists and takes deep breaths as he kisses her cheek, her forehead. His overgrown blond bangs tickle against her face and he begins moving downwards very slowly, lips kissing the tip of her chin, then her neck, going back up to suck and lick slowly on her earlobe before finding her throat as her head falls back with a sigh. Her hands bury themselves in his hair and she guides him lower to a sensitive spot just beneath her collarbone and then onwards to the tops of her breasts, and the soft wet kisses that travel down inch by inch after that send a slow, burning heat between her legs.

He catches a nipple between his lips and licks it tentatively. His reward is a light gasp so he finds her other nipple and rolls it slowly between his finger and thumb. "Do you like this?" he asks her gently, and she nods slowly, blushing, so he does it again and sucks her breast lightly, making her arch helplessly at the soft wetness of his mouth where she'd never known he would want to put it. "You're so beautiful," he tells her at a loss for any other way to say it, and he's being completely honest. He means every word. "You're like poetry, or the most perfect work of art."

She manages a laugh. "You're just being nice, Peeta," her whispers are breathless. "I'm far from perfect."

He works his way down from between the valley of her breasts. "Not to me," he tells her. "I see fearlessness. Love. Sacrifice." Each word is followed by a tender kiss placed on the scars that curve and streak across her stomach as her toes curl at the sensation of his lips on her.

"This is perfection. Do you know how hard it is to capture the essence of all those things on a canvas?" His fingers entwine with hers as he meets her eyes, watching silver flecks dance across her grey irises. "But you - you don't even have to try." He presses a chaste kiss to the waistband of her pants and her hips buck up into him excitedly because she needs him, needs him just a little lower.

"Always the master of persuasion," she says breathlessly, reaching out to brush his hair away from his forehead.

"Especially when I'm right," he traces the outline of her hipbone and then gestures to her pants. "May I?"

She assists him in pulling them down so she's only in her damp underwear. He keeps his gaze steadfastly on her face, which is burning bright pink right down to her neck.

"You trust me," he reminds her softly. "Do you trust me, Katniss?"

"Always," she whispers back, and he begins kissing his way up her lithe faded-patchwork calves - hunter's calves - _poetry in motion_, he thinks again. She turns her head and moans, amazed at how his wet kisses can feel that magical on her legs. The insides of her thighs are so soft under his lips._ Perfection_.

He's nearly there though when she crosses her legs, or tries to, what with him between them. "What are you doing?"

He hears the panic in her voice and strokes her thigh, doing his best to be comforting. No insinuations here - she wants honesty and he wants to give her that. "It's hard to explain, but… I just want to touch you. Taste you. I want to make you feel good."

He watches the blush bloom across her cheeks again. "If you're uncomfortable with that I won't do it," he promises and waits for her to tell him so, but her hand finds his and she surprises him when slowly, very slowly, she rests his hand over the waistband of her underwear.

"I trust you, Peeta," she whispers.

He hooks a thumb around the elastic, looking at her for confirmation. She gives a tiny nod and shuts her eyes tight as he begins to slide her last piece of clothing down her legs and off her body.

Then there's silence as he looks at her for the first time in his life, taking her in. "Am I okay?" she asks nervously. She feels so bare, so exposed.

He laughs and squeezes her hand. "Are you _okay_? You're more than okay, Katniss."

"I'm really sorry, I'm so wet and - ugh, this is embarrassing," she admits in a whisper.

"That's fine," he tells her with a boyish smile. "It means my kisses worked." Then he opens her gently with his thumbs - she_ is_ dripping - and slides his finger along her once, looking up to see her gulp a breath at the sensation of his touch and squeeze her eyes shut.

He closes his eyes for a moment too, in awe that he's actually doing this. He's heard about it from the older boys at school but they were always laughing and boasting like perverts, making him listen even though he didn't want to. Nothing's ever prepared him for his - her - _their_ first time, where every wave of pleasure washing over her is intensified, multiplied infinitely because she knows how much he loves her, and every movement of his hands is to make her feel beautiful.

The soft flesh between her legs is slick under his artist fingers, and the little hums that work their way out of her mouth could be a song - a better song than any other ever written. He brushes past a little nub and she sighs, "Oh - Peeta, can you - there -" so he traces a circle around it and takes it between his finger and thumb, drawing a gasp and a cry.

"You like this?" he asks her over her moans, and she nods wildly so he presses, rubs, and flicks until he can tell even that won't be enough.

She's panting softly, "Please, Peeta, please," and with his thumb working on the nub he inserts a slippery finger inside her that makes her cry out as he slides it in and out. _Poetry in motion._

There's no way he can ask her what feels good anymore - she's incoherent at this point - so he'll have to rely on his wits to satisfy her. He slips another finger in and hears his name in a moan, then he holds her hips down, curling the two fingers he's got clenched inside her to see her eyes roll back in her head and feel her hand grip his free one in ecstasy.

_This is amazing._ He can't wrap his mind around it._ This is so amazing._

Almost there, but not quite. He grasps her hip and hoists her thighs over his shoulders, opening her to him completely, and puts his mouth on the little bundle of nerves that his thumb had been working on so she cries his name._ Perfection._

When he takes the nub between his lips delicately and licks a gentle little pattern around it with his tongue, there's a sudden flood of warm wetness around his fingers and he's sure this is it. Her head is thrown back, her back arched, the long, ragged moan torn from her mouth is what he knows she's been holding back all this while but _can't_ any longer as her self-control shatters.

He waits patiently through her release, kissing, lapping wetly, and curling his fingers, and when her gasps fade into sighs he pulls himself up, wipes his mouth, and kisses her.

"Peeta," she mumbles in exhaustion as he wipes sweaty strands of hair away from her forehead. "Peeta… that was… that was -"

"Beautiful," he grins, scooping her up in his arms and hugging her close so he feels her pounding heartbeat racing against his own.

She huffs against his shoulder, more embarrassed than annoyed. Leave it to her boy to see all the weird sounds and jerky movements she just made as _beautiful_. "You're always seeing beauty in everything."

"Well," he runs his fingers through the hair flowing down her back, "having an eye for beauty isn't the same thing as weakness, except _definitely_ when it comes to you."

She pulls away, laughing, and looks him in the eye. "You said something like that before, a long time ago... Real or not real?"

"Real," he confirms, and she gives him a kiss which he gladly returns, and they lie together, feeling their hearts beat as one.

"Can I sleep with my shirt off every night now, or do you still have a problem with being pure?" he teases her, a hand sliding down her arm.

"I thought I finally shed that reputation a few minutes ago." An indescribable feeling begins to gnaw within her uncomfortably, and she takes a deep breath, trying to steady herself. Had they really just done... what they'd just done?

He shakes his head. "You won't ever. For me, you're pure. Always." He tucks her hair behind her ear so he can whisper, "For me, you're perfect."

She bites her lip and tries to smile back, wondering why she feels the opposite of pure. Or perfect.

* * *

><p><em>You say you're running out of the truth<em>

_And it contradicts the interest in you_

_You say you're running out of the truth_

_(Fire)_

_And it contradicts the interest in you_

_(Burning on desire)_

* * *

><p><strong>AN:<strong> Does that count as a cliffie? /smiles Peeta's "evil" smile


	4. Always

**AN:** This might be in the end, folks. I'm sorry about the long wait, and here are three reasons why this took longer than even I'd previously estimated:

I. (Ha, I love Roman numerals!) I rewrote this chapter three friggin' times! I'm talking about several few thousand words out of line every rewrite. What you are going to read now is what I really feel is most accurate out of all, and as result you get lemons. Yum, you're welcome. [;

II. Have any of you ever taken a Business Diploma when all you really want to do is art, music, and English literature? Yeah, it sucks.

III. Why you all no give me nice reviews? Except for three or four exceptionally kind people, I had no idea if the rest of you thought the previous chapter was wonderful or if you thought that everything about this story sucked. You guys, this works both ways. I need to know that you want me to finish writing this!

Okay, okay, I've rambled my heart out. Without further ado, a big thank you to **Snapcrackle** for her endless encouragement – you should thank her too, I think she's the only reason why y'all are getting this. /serious nod

Fun fact: I listened to **Vienna Teng's **_**Gravity**_ a total of 60 times over and over again while writing this, so if you want to truly get into the mood of this chapter, I DEMAND YOU LISTEN FIRST. REALLY. OPEN YOUTUBE. _GO._

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><p><em>Hey, love<em>

_Is that the name you're meant to have_

_For me to call?_

_Look, love_

_They've given up believing_

_They've turned aside our stories of the gentle fall_

_But don't you believe them_

_Don't you drink their poison too_

_These are the scars that words have carved_

_On me… _

_Hey, love_

_That's the name we've long held back_

_From the core of truth_

_So don't turn away now_

_I am turning in revolution_

_These are the scars that silence carved_

_On me..._

* * *

><p>Her arm drifts down the sofa and onto the floor, her fingers searching for her bra. She's slipped on her underwear already, feeling awkward that he's watching her with his own pants still on. The fact that they've even undressed on this sofa and done, well, <em>something,<em> brings an uncomfortable, churning feeling of embarrassment to her insides, and she gives a start when she realizes that while she was lost in worried thought, he'd found her bra for her.

She moves to take it from him with an awkward, "Thanks."

"Um…" he holds on to it by its straps, smiling shyly. "I could use some practice with the clasp…"

So she moves her arms so he can slide the bra onto her, and she happens to catch the look on his face and he begins to work on clasping it - his tongue pokes through his lips just a little, his eyebrows draw together in concentration, and a laugh suddenly finds its way out of a place within her she's not sure existed before. In spite of the apprehension brewing in her stomach, his dedicating so much care and patience to learning how to clasp her is so endearing she turns on impulse to wrap her arms around him and kiss him, forgetting what he was working on.

He sighs and lets out a laugh of his own against her lips, mumbling, "Katniss, I was just getting it."

"Sorry," she frowns and pulls away, wondering what possessed her. "I don't know why I did that." And she usually never does something without knowing why, to say the least. When did that change? And how did it change without her even noticing? Apparently he has an effect on her too - making her forget to think. _Stupid_, she thinks in frustration. _Don't kiss him if you don't have a reason to._

His fingers find their way to her back again while he shrugs and gives her a smile. "You don't have to know why you did it."

"Sure I do," she answers as the churning becomes stronger and the laugh that had filled her to the brim begins to shrivel up and die.

He shakes his head. "Always the careful, calculating huntress."

"That's not a bad thing," she defends herself.

"No, not at all," he agrees with a satisfied exhalation as the clasp catches the hook. He gathers her shirt and sweater from the floor and lifts her arms so he can dress her. "But I guess - there doesn't have to be a reason for kissing me, Katniss. If you feel like it - you know how much I like your spontaneity." There's a shy smile on his lips again as he says this, and she's relieved that he isn't teasing her about all the times she's attacked him.

_He likes it_, she realizes, and even though the right response should feeling warm inside or reaching for a beaming smile from deep within that place she'd just found a laugh floating out from, the churning only becomes worse as she tries to understand how she feels knowing that he likes her pouncing on him and kissing him.

_Why me?_ she groans silently. _Why inexperienced seventeen year old Katniss Everdeen who knows nothing about kissing?_

Why can't she be hunting in the woods, looking forward to seeing Prim at home, living a normal life which would stretch on into ignorant, unmarried adulthood? And why is she instead allowing Peeta to dress her after a very, very intimate half-hour of touching, kissing, fondling, and other things that should belong on a wedding night, not to two seventeen year olds who had set fire to a rebellion and came away with more than third degree burns?

"Are you sure?" she forces herself to say. "Because I think it's really annoying to be kissed when you don't feel like it…"

He gives her a little smile that somehow creases a dimple into the side of his chin. She had never noticed he had dimples when he smiled. "I know you don't like being disturbed by me kissing you, but I don't think I mind so much if you disturb me."

She shakes her head, laughing at his answer, but she's caught the undercurrent of his meaning.

_You can kiss me for no reason. _

_Please kiss me for no reason._

_I like kissing you._

She blushes and he laughs too, knowing the message he's too abashed to say out loud has worked its way to her after all.

He's preparing a rushed lunch for them in the kitchen when he realizes what the vague sadness weighing on his chest is for. Clutching his breadknife and staring outside into the snow, he remembers an older, laughing male voice and can almost picture his older brother leaning against the back doorway. Suddenly he isn't in Katniss's and his house in the Victor's Village - the windowpane he's staring at belongs to the now demolished bakery, all the way in a now demolished town. "So, Peeta," the voice teases merrily. "I saw Everdeen looking at you today."

His own reply was the customary, "Shut up. She wasn't anywhere near me."

"Seriously, though." The voice lowers into something resembling solemnity. "Are you going after her or not? Are you just going to let Hawthorne sweep her off her feet?"

"No one sweeps Katniss off her feet," he rolls his eyes, embarrassed that he's even having this conversation with his older brother of all people.

"Ooh, on first name terms now, are we?" Kirsch raises an eyebrow, sniggering, but he ignores him and continues, "She isn't the kind of girl you can sweep off her feet. You have to be sort of - there, all the time. Earn her trust. Help her. Just let her be whatever she wants. And maybe, one day - well. So I basically don't stand a chance. Can we not talk about this?"

"So you're practically handing it over to Hawthorne. That's what you're saying, aren't you? What happened to putting up a fight?"

"You think Katniss appreciates guys fighting over her?" he kneads his frustration into the dough harder than he should.

"Stop teasing the kid, Kirsch," Rye's voice - even deeper than Kirsch's, which should be impossible - saves him. "Honestly, you think liking the toughest, most unlikeable Seam girl is easy?"

"Hey!" he protests, but Rye just waves him off. "I think Dad needs you up front, Kirsch. Doing something more productive."

Kirsch makes a face and heads out to the front of the shop, and Rye shuts the door behind him and takes a look at his dough. "I think that's enough, Peet. You'll overwork it if you aren't careful."

He sighs and tosses the dough aside, collapsing into a chair.

"I know it isn't easy."

His head snaps up to find Rye still watching him, arms crossed. Then he says quietly, "But if you like her that much - do what you have to."

He blinks and suddenly Katniss is at his side, cutting the bread he's forgotten in his reminiscing.

"Oh - sorry, it's okay, I'll do it." He reaches for his knife but she just shakes her head and goes on slicing.

"Go sit down." She puts the bread on a plate and he knows she can see his thoughts are elsewhere. Making his way to the dining table, he wishes he could explain how badly he wants to see his brothers now, to put his arm around Katniss and introduce her to his family. He wishes he could announce the news to their surprised faces when they finally plan to marry, or something - because he still wants to marry her so much and heaven knows when that'll happen. He can nearly see the knowing looks and nudges Rye and Kirsch would be giving him and each other, the grins and thumps on the back and congratulations and ragging, and again he realizes that that's a sight he will never behold. Ever.

It hurts him, a dull ache in his chest.

As he watches her eat, the list of things he wishes for grows. He wants her to be his, really his. He wishes that the fake story he'd fed to Caesar about their toasting were real, and while he knows he'd said that pieces of paper would never determine how married he feels towards her, he yearns now for her signature next to his, folded away and dusty in the records of their demolished Justice Building. He wishes he could call her his wife and that her face would glow to hear him. He wishes that what they had just done was after their toasting, in the dark of night - _their_ night. Their first night together, tethered, married, bonded as one. He wishes for all of these things because he knows it's foolish to actually want them.

Because she doesn't want them.

Later in the day, after her bath, she climbs out of the steaming tub and stands dripping and naked in front of the bathroom's full-length mirror, shivering at the sudden switch in temperature from burning hot to icy cold. The fading evening light casts a soft orange glow on her skin - his favourite colour - and she chews the inside of her cheek and examines herself. Before, all she could notice were scars and skin grafts and discolourations, a piece of patchwork made out of living tissue. Herself, who she was. Her war-torn body.

But now… now, things are different. She can nearly see his kisses all over her, tangible and visible. Loving her neck, nuzzling her breastbone, sucking lightly on the delicate pink tips of her breasts, trailing softly down the sensitive skin of her stomach and then lower, lower, lower, to where he'd thrown her into heaven and caught her when she tumbled back down into his arms.

The hairs on her skin stand on end as she shivers - though whether it's from the cold or from remembering, she isn't sure. Her body isn't just her own anymore, it's his too now. He's seen all of her, has practically worshipped all of her, never forgetting an inch of her skin.

_What's wrong with that? _ she asks her worried reflection in the mirror uneasily.

She wraps her bathrobe around her and sits on the edge of the tub, trembling slightly. It's stupid to sit here and stare in the mirror, wet and freezing, but she can't describe how terrified she is of having to unlock the door, get out of here, and face him again.

She's only delaying the inevitable, she knows. With a sigh she stands up abruptly, and blood rushes into her head and clouds out her vision for a second or two. _I can't believe I forgot a towel and just sat here freezing myself to death_, she thinks in frustration, waiting for the room to stop spinning. As soon as she can see, she marches to the door, unlocks it, and steps out into their room, but the sudden momentum she'd built halts as she catches sight of him.

He's lying on their bed, asleep and still in the clothes he had been wearing all day. Deep orange light from their windows makes his blond hair seem to shine softly, and he looks so peaceful with his eyelashes brushing the skin below his lids and his lips parted slightly as he sips the air and breathes it out again with every rise and fall of his chest. She has to smile a little in spite of herself, her insides warming till she imagines she's glowing from the inside out, the same colour as the sunset.

Then - she loses her balance a little, still dizzy, and accidently backs into a chair, wincing as it clatters backrest first onto the floor.

He opens one eye, focusing slowly on her. He chuckles tiredly, his voice scratchy. "Hey."

"Hi." Her face burns as she struggles to regain the balance in her head. She reaches down to pull the chair back upright, but her bathrobe falls open and she nearly tears it pulling the fabric so tightly back around her body. It takes several moments to remember that it doesn't matter, he's seen pretty much everything there is to see. _And he loves it_, a voice inside her taunts. Every apprehensive emotion she'd felt in the bathroom comes rushing back till she feels sick in more ways than one.

She crosses her arms over her chest and then freezes, wondering if he'd rather she just pull the bathrobe off so he can love her all over again. How many times a day do people do this? And how do they know when's the next time? Do they follow their instincts?

_Hers_ tell her she's had enough of this for awhile, at least until she's figured it out.

Maybe her common sense is off. She's never had any experience in this. What if he really wants to do it again, _right now_? She inhales and shuts her eyes, pressing her fingers over her eyelids like Portia had once done. She sees sparks and fireworks and they make her dizzy again, swaying slightly. She presses harder. Her head feels light and tingly, and there's something else, too.

Nausea.

Well, that's a welcome change from whatever she'd felt that morning that is so hard to understand. Nausea's a safe sensation, she'll take it.

He sits up, resting his weight on one elbow, and watches her in concern. The springs in their bed squeak as he shifts his position, more alert now. "Katniss? Are you okay?"

Still swaying, she gives a tiny nod, hiding behind her wet hair. "Yes," she whispers. _Liar_, the voice whispers back.

He frowns. "Was the water too hot? Do you want to come lie down?"

_Lie down so he can do it again_, she panics. Lie down so he can take away her bathrobe and feast on her skin. That _must_ be what he's asking. "No! I'm fine!" she argues, swaying harder. "I'm fine…"

She starts violently when she feels his arms around her, steadying her, but there are no kisses like she'd feared. He just gently scoops her up, carries her to the bed, and lays her down, pulling her fingers away from her eyelids. "Don't do that," he tells her firmly. "It makes you dizzy. Have you dried yourself?"

"No," she mumbles. "I have the bathrobe though, it's fine."

He opens his drawer and chooses a clean towel, bringing it to her on the bed. "Katniss, you've been through winters before. It's important you get dry before coming out into cold air, especially if you've been in hot water."

The gnawing starts within her again, like an itch so deep down she can't reach. It's not like she doesn't know sensible things like that! And who thinks about those things anyway when they've just had a traumatizing _first time_? She's being stupid, she knows - their first time was hardly traumatizing - but she's too confused to question the way she feels at the moment. She snatches the towel from him, muttering, "Thanks. Can you turn around?"

His eyes widen in confusion, and she snaps, "I can't have you watching me, right?"

"Oh." He blushes, because he really had forgotten for awhile that she'd have to take off her bathrobe. "Sorry." He faces the wall, slightly concerned that she's so suddenly moody. It's not like he wouldn't turn around in the first place if he had remembered - he respects her. He always has, always will. But the way she'd said it… _I can't have you watching me, right?_ Almost as if she'd expected him to.

_Is it because of…?_

The air is hard to breathe all of a sudden.

He shakes his head, convinced he's over thinking - he must be getting paranoid. That morning had been the best morning of his life, and well… she hadn't seemed unhappy about it at all either.

But still.

He's highly aware that the girl behind him isn't ordinary in any way - she's _Katniss_, after all. The girl who doesn't care for being swept off her feet or being fought over. Who can say what she really feels when she's so different from any other girl he's ever known? And if what she feels is what he's most afraid of, he won't waste his time feeling sorry for himself.

When she's changed and feeling better, she reaches for his shoulder. "You can look now," she whispers apologetically, upset with herself now for being unkind to him when he was being nothing but kind.

He gives her a half smile and asks, "Do you feel better?"

"Yes," she avoids his eyes, ashamed instead of proud that she's finally telling the truth. Her eyes focus on the fullness of his lower lip before hurriedly looking elsewhere. What is getting into her? Awhile ago she'd just decided she'd had enough of kissing him for a long, long time - right now, though, she wants his kisses. More than his kisses. Suddenly the bathrobe feels stifling.

* * *

><p>He washes the plates after dinner, and she dries them quietly as she stands by his side. Nudging him with her shoulder so he turns her way, she purses her lip and mumbles, "Sorry about just now. When I got mad at you."<p>

He just smiles and nudges her back gently. "S'okay." He rinses off the back of the last plate and hands it to her thoughtfully. "Would you like to take a walk?"

She looks at him expectantly. "Where are you thinking of?"

He tests the word on his tongue, feeling every movement of his lips as he says, "Town?"

He looks over to her to see her eyebrows raise slightly. Then she takes a deep breath and says, "Okay."

So much unsaid by their lips within that conversation but spoken with their eyes. They'd never seen the point of traipsing through a place of ashes and misery, not even when people started to rebuild it. And they'd nearly _never_ been seen together in public ever since they had returned to Twelve, much less being seen taking a walk purely for the sake of just taking it.

Yet he feels like he's ready to see the place where the bakery had once stood - and he thinks she knows that. Well, maybe he isn't _ready_, but he needs to remember a little more of his family after the vivid picture that came to his mind before lunch. He just needs to remember - just a little more before he closes his eyes tonight. This is tempting fate, he knows. Tempting flashbacks, tempting him to hurt Katniss in whatever emotions overcome him.

But he has to see. He hasn't seen yet.

It's nothing short of strange standing by the door and putting on their things together. She struggles into the winterwear Cinna had given her and he helps her with the stubborn jacket, easing her into it. The search for his misplaced boots takes another five minutes.

Just before they open the door, though, he leans his forehead against hers and gives her a grateful thank-you kiss for agreeing to join him, his lips still soft in spite of the cold air. She forgets her worries for a little, letting her hands slip under his winter coat and grasp his sweater with a sigh. In spite of her confusion before, nothing has ever felt more right than it does right now to be close to him again.

_It's funny_, she thinks, resting a hand on the expense of solidity that is his chest. These things which seem unnatural and awkward and easy to fear when seen from a distance, but she loses her mind so quickly, so effortlessly, when he's doing them with her. He's backing her against the wall and running his hand down her back to caress her waist, and when she pulls away slightly for air they're both panting just a little.

She chases his lips again, wanting to stay in this moment, the moment where she doesn't care about figuring out what this is and how she should feel about it, where the only kind of emotion that truly matters is the one that's making her heart beat so furiously within her chest. Her fingers lose themselves in his hair as he grips her face, kissing her deeper, and the vague realization that she can _hear_ them kissing is nearly enough to make her blush before the hand he has on her waist slides lower down behind her hip and squeezes gently.

She lets out a surprised gasp and then he stops and pulls away, shaking his head as if to clear it and frowning like he's trying to remember something. "Were - were we going out?" his voice is husky.

"No," she breathes back, her fingers edging his coat off his shoulders.

He laughs, his eyes so blue, and stills her hands with his own, bringing them to his lips and kissing her fingers. "You're a very bad liar."

Rolling her eyes, she tries to kiss him again but he moves away, looking sorry with every step he takes. "Come on, we should go."

She swallows the sudden giant lump of disappointment that is stuck in her throat and follows him out of their home, onto the road that will take them into town and into a place she's never actually ventured into since she had been allowed to come back.

What will it be like, now that things have changed and she isn't the Seam hunter girl making her way to the Hob to trade her kills for something to keep the rest of her family alive?

There is no more Hob, no more family except for this boy whom she clings to in desperation. And, ironically, there is no more need to trade when she has all the money she could ask for.

How will it be to face staring eyes which barely mask their hatred for her impulsive stupidity of the berries, and then the force field arrow, and then the shooting of President Coin? She is sure she hasn't been forgotten, hasn't been forgiven by the district or by Panem.

She turns her head slightly so she can see his profile out of the corners of her eyes. Does _he_ forgive her, really? For every single mistake she'd made that had earned him his stay in the Capitol and wiped out his family in one fell swoop? The more she broods, the less she is sure of what this morning had showed her. She knows he is kind and gentle and easily moved with pity - but she doesn't want his pity.

Because it is out of pity that he is staying close to her. It must be. And yet part of her pulls back, hurt, unable to think of him in that way. Surely he must feel something for her to have done what he had done this morning. Surely it wasn't a lie.

She takes her mind off the heaviness of her thoughts with great effort - there is a reason why they are walking into town, and it is to see his old life. She won't think about herself, she promises. She _will_ be strong for him if the need ever arises. She _will_ forget about her own stupid problems.

There are strings of little lights guiding the way along the paths, and she wonders out loud, "Did the Victor's Village have these before?"

He shakes his head and catches a snowflake in the palm of the hand that's not holding hers. "I think a very kind person must have set them up for us."

The idea of anyone living in this dead-end district and putting pretty little lights along pathways for Victors of the now demolished Hunger Games is so foreign to her that she tells him so. He grins and replies, "I think it's time we found out who's living in Twelve for real, then."

As they make their way out of the immaculate, mostly-empty Victor's Village in the light snowfall, he undoes her braid in spite of her protests. "I like it this way," he tells her with a soft smile, watching her long brown hair fall over her shoulders and down her back.

He tucks a little of it behind her ear the best he can with his glove and leans in to murmur, "You're so distracting, do you know that?" She knows he's talking about the wall by the front door, and as the memory of his hand sliding down her hip ignites a spark in the pit of her stomach, the warmth of his arm around her waist now coaxes the little flame straight into a blazing fire within her. So when she whispers back, "So are you," it is the truth. Completely. Whatever thoughts she had before this hasn't changed the fact that he is a hundred percent undeniably distracting.

She can't tell if he's blushing or if it's just the chill of winter, but his flush turns a deeper red when she stands on her tiptoes and whispers in his ear, "I want you, Peeta."

Then she pulls back in embarrassment, upset that she'd just voiced her desire so thoughtlessly. Why does he always have this effect on her, the effect which makes her even more impulsive than is actually safe?

"Maybe later," he promises, kissing the side of her mouth, and she throws her goddamned caution to the wind in exasperation. She wants him - so what? What the heck is wrong about wanting him? She moves her head a little so his lips are on hers, needing to feel their softness and his gentleness, but he pulls away, laughing a little. "Katniss, don't tempt me. You know we can't do anything out here in the beginning of winter."

She sighs, releasing a white puff of steam into the night air. "Then let's just go to town and come back quick."

"Sounds like a plan," he teases, but the gentle squeeze he gives her waist lets her know he's looking forward to it too.

If she'd thought the lights near home were pretty, the town is blazing so brightly through the gentle flurry of snow that the long-drawn gasp that escapes her is purely involuntary. It nearly seems as though everyone in Twelve is celebrating the winter, which in turn seems unreal, because Twelve never celebrated any kind of season.

Winter brought blizzards and a shortage of fresh meat. Spring hardly seemed to come soon enough for whatever meager crops planted to grow. Summer - while the closest anyone came to being grateful for - threatened to dry springs and send game fleeing for cooler weather. Autumn jeered of winter's coming once more, robbed of the pathetic harvest it deserved which was sent to the Capitol instead.

Then Peeta laughs, and she can hear such happiness in the sound of it she can't help but feel happy herself. "I love this," he tells her. "This place feels more - joyful somehow."

She smiles in understanding and tucks her hand more securely in the crook of his arm. People here _do_ celebrate winter - and he is the first of them.

As they follow the road which leads through town, the first thing she realizes is that from the entrance, the place is nearly fully rebuilt. Twelve's residents have been busy piecing their lives back together - or settling down in a chance for new beginnings. Icicles hang from the sign above the shut-up florist that's awaiting spring, the smell of warm food wafts from simple buildings that call themselves "Restaurants" on their signs.

"We never had those," she remarks wonderingly.

"Yes," he agrees. "I've only ever seen them in the Capitol. Paylor's really helping everyone pick themselves up after the war."

"Snow really hoarded so much if Paylor can keep supplying us Victors with our winnings _and_ offer generous amounts to the whole nation," she realizes in contempt. Even though the old President is dead, his memory will never cease to disgust her.

He knows her so well, and she turns to see him smiling and shaking his head at her. "Katniss, you've got to look at the bright side. It's because he hoarded it all that the after-effects of the war aren't as devastating as they should be."

"But still." She isn't done arguing her point. "I'd rather he have been honest and then we really and truly fend for ourselves now. That way everyone's honest, and no one needs charity."

He holds up a gloved finger. "Point one." She realizes that she's picked the wrong person to debate with. "If Snow'd been honest, we wouldn't have had a rebellion. Point two - the role of the President is to help the people, Katniss. Not everyone's as capable as you are." There isn't a hint of sarcasm in his words, not even at the end.

She sighs again, sending another puff of steam into the dark.

"What's wrong with charity, anyway?" He prompts her, and she catches his hint. There it is again - her old problem with owing and selfless kindness.

She looks at him and rolls her eyes. "Okay, fine." He recognizes it as code for _Thanks for the reminder. I'm trying._

"Well," a dry voice interrupts them. "I'm glad to see you both out and about, I'm sure." Greasy Sae's smiling from where she standing from the doorway of one of the restaurants. "And I'm not the only one," she adds teasingly.

Both of them blush to see furtive glances from passersby and people dining and chattering between spoonfuls of Sae's beef soup about how the Mockingjay and Peeta Mellark - two rarely sighted public figures - are now standing outside on the road, arguing. But none of them are glaring at her, she realizes. _Strange._

In an effort to forget their stares, she averts her eyes and takes a good look at the homely place with its red-and-white checked tablecloths and a merry flame crackling in the fireplace. It makes her ache for the untouched fireplace in their own home, and she promises herself she'll light a fire there one of these days. "This place yours, Sae?" she asks, and the knowing look on her face touches Sae's heart.

"Yep, girly. My very own," the woman says proudly. "That man, Heavensbee, he gave me the money for taking care of you. Mind you, I wasn't expecting it! Tell me, has he called you about that singing nonsense he wants you to film?"

Any joy at seeing a dream of Sae's fulfilled is squeezed out of her stomach as it twists at the sound of Plutarch Heavensbee's wretched name. She steals a glance at Peeta's face and is surprised to see his jaw set, lips in a straight line. "No," he answers Sae for her. And that's all. They seem to share some silent exchange before Sae is interrupted by her underhand who tells her she's needed.

"I'll see you two around," she says with one more gap-toothed smile. "Young man, when you come around to it all of us could use some fresh bread. The ones that come from the supply train just ain't the same." With that, she makes her way to her kitchen and leaves them outside her restaurant.

"What was that about?" she asks him pointedly. "Did Plutarch call?"

He tugs her along, past the restaurants, so they can have a break from the people within staring at them. "Yeah, he did," he admits.

"And…"

"And I told him you weren't interested, simple as that," he shrugs. "Hey, Sae didn't invite us to try her soup."

"There's probably dog meat in it then," she smiles halfheartedly and then laughs a little at his shocked expression. "Peeta! I'm _joking_."

He looks relieved until she asks, "What exactly did Plutarch say?"

"You really want to know," he realizes with a sigh, earning an eye-roll in his direction.

"Of course I do. I just found out from _Greasy Sae_ of all people that the man who's been hounding me for entertainment called up and my very thoughtful…" their eyes watch each other while she figures out what to call him - "housemate," she gulps, "took care of him and never told me." What can she call him? Boyfriend? She hates that. Fiancee? But they're not even engaged.

"I figured it would bother you," he speaks in his defense as they meander past poorer and poorer excuses for actual buildings.

The air is quieter and less people are hanging around this part of town - the part which reminds them all of something so bombastic and so sadistic it could've been a nightmare but was entirely true. They're closer now to the shops that never recovered from the assault and were never salvaged, and she falls silent and forgets Plutarch at the sight of the remainders of life before the Games.

Her feet crunch past a pile of ashes that used to be the butcher's store, and yet another pile that had belonged to the medicine supplier, and still yet another pile that had held the tailor's bundles of cloth.

_All that cotton must have been easy to burn…_ She realizes it's the first miserable thought she can manage out of the sudden numbness that clutches at her heart.

His face has aged in the few minutes they'd taken leaving the new and full of hope and making their way to the old and forgotten. Any trace of happiness he'd felt in the last few moments is gone from his features - _or_ _maybe_, she realizes with a pang in her chest,_ it was never there to begin with_. While she had been cross-examining him mercilessly about Plutarch, he'd willingly entertained her complete disregard for the fact that he was here to see where his family died. She hates herself for forgetting her promise to be strong for him, switching roles so that, as a result, he had to be strong for both of them.

She catches sight of his trembling hands and takes both of them in hers in an effort to comfort him. He gives her a grateful look. Not a smile, just a look - the only thing he can muster at the moment. They find themselves at a pile of rubble, with the only indicator of it ever once being a building the ruins of one wall. She frowns at it with a sense of déjà vu. _There was something about this wall_ - if only she could remember, everything about it seems so hazy…

He shakily releases the breath he didn't know he'd been holding in. "It's hard to believe that this was where…" He breaks off, unable to speak, and shakes his head.

She gives his hands a squeeze, and in her silent sympathy he finds the courage to continue.

"Is this really it?" He turns to look at her, trying to subdue his desperation as much as he can. "Was this really the place I grew up in? It can't be. My home's still around somewhere, along with the bakery - Dad and Mum and my brothers are still somewhere out there…" his voice cracks. "Tell me this isn't it, Katniss," he breathes, blinking away his tears.

She just shakes her head mournfully.

He'd thought he could face this, after so many months of hiding away from the truth. He'd thought the time had healed him, that it had taken away the pain. But now the truth is staring in him the face, plain and stark and ugly, and through his pain he registers vaguely that he hadn't felt such a pounding grief since he had visited Prim's room.

His eyes focus on Katniss, who is staring, troubled, at the one wall that is left of the bakery - the remainder of his past life. She's all he has now… and she's always been what he's wanted. And yet… how would it have been if they'd never created the controversy of the Star-Crossed Lovers?

Would it have saved her? Would it have saved her family, and his? He would die, of course, but that wasn't the point. Everyone would have been safe. That was what he had argued for, hadn't he, that night on the beach - that she go home to Prim, her mother, and Gale, and that consequently his family and all of District Twelve be spared?

She fired her arrow. She made her choice. And he realizes all at once that _he_ was her choice.

She loved him more than she loved anyone else in all of Panem, and in doing so she'd unknowingly chosen his life over theirs.

He doesn't even know how to feel.

A sweet musical refrain drifts gently towards them, and she turns to look at him with concern in her grey eyes and an attempt at a smile. "Do you want to dance?" she offers halfheartedly, trying to cheer him up, he knows - if not for this, she'd never be caught dead dancing.

Her finger indicates the direction of the square, and he can just make out couples moving gracefully and happily in time to a fiddle's tune.

He squeezes out a horrible croaking laugh. "Why should I?"

"Because…" she looks down, gulping. "Because you're happy we're still alive?"

He wants to open his mouth and honestly say _I'm not_, but he catches sight of the look on her face and it hits him squarely in the chest. She's blaming herself for the bombings and for the death of so many people they'd known and loved. And if there's one thing he's sure of, it's that it isn't her fault! She had never planned for Snow to retaliate so swiftly, she'd never even known what the rebels were planning, she'd just followed what Beetee had been working on before he was knocked out -

"I'm sorry," she chokes out. "This is all my fault. I killed all of them because I was so _impulsive_ - " she stomps the frozen ground - "and _stupid_" - another angry stomp - "and_ stupid enough to follow what Haymitch said_ -"

"Katniss," he interrupts her softly, reaching out his hand. "Let's dance."

She stops dead, staring at his tear-streaked face in shock. "Why should we?" she gets out through gritted teeth.

"Because I'm glad I'm alive," he whispers. "And I'm so glad you are too." There's silence except for her laboured breathing.

He takes her hand and rests his other on her waist, and she ducks her head and mutters, "Right here?"

Right here, in the dim streetlight that falls on the single broken-down wall of his home and his life before the rebellion?

Right here, in front of the ruins of Twelve and the ghosts of the people who had once trodden on this road and _lived_?

"Yes," he says firmly. She bites her lip and slides her hand up his chest to rest on his shoulder, and as the fiddle's laughing voice fades into a slow, mournful song, they begin to dance.

"Do you remember the last time we did this?" he asks with a carefully applied smile, more for the sake of distracting her than anything else. Her face still holds a grief that pains him to look at. "The pie plate dance," he prompts her when she doesn't answer.

"I remember, all right," her voice is tight. "After our fake engagement announcement, in Snow's mansion. Prep team was throwing up so they could keep gorging on the feast. I was planning to take Gale and our families and run away - "

"And we were engaged," he answers his own question with a disappointed sigh. "Happiest day of my life."

"More like the worst," she counters bitterly as he twirls her around. He can't help noticing how graceful she is, even in winter clothing and boots. "It wasn't even real."

"Katniss -" he begins desperately. "It's not your fault that - that all of this happened. It had to happen, sooner or later, and you were what brought it to pass. That's a good thing, I swear it is."

They're still moving in the pie plate circle, and her fingers grasp his like what he's said is what she wants to believe with all her heart. "Killing your family is not a good thing," she says, sounding like a broken record. "Wiping out District Twelve was not a good thing."

"We already had this talk two days ago," he reminds her sadly. "When we made the cake for Prim and Rue."

Her eyes meet his, the grey glimmering with unshed tears as she remembers the passion of his kisses and her back against the kitchen wall, and then him gently undressing her, and his fingers slipping in and out as his blue eyes watched her, and the awe-filled smile on his face...

She pulls herself out of his grasp with a start, furiously wiping away the tears that have begun streaming down her face. "I don't know why you love me, Peeta," she manages to get out through her heaving sobs. "I'm responsible for everyone who's died in this bloody war."

"Katniss - " he tries to reach for her, but she brushes past him and takes off running away from this awful place impregnated with awful memories of times she's sure he's been happier in - a lot happier than dancing with the person who'd caused his world to crumble, anyway. She races down the street, into the square, dodging slow-dancing men and women who look so impossibly happy too. How can anyone be happy after the rebellion? Why aren't they tying her to the whipping post and repaying the debt they owe the Mockingjay - the debt of a slow, excruciating death? Isn't that what she deserves?

How can anyone be happy picking up the pieces of their shattered lives?

She keeps running, on and on and on, out of town. She doesn't stop, not even when a stitch in her side develops painfully - she doesn't want to see anyone, least of all him. She doesn't want him following her.

And he watches her go, tears on his face, his heart cracking within his chest and piercing his lungs in sharp, merciless shards.

* * *

><p>He comes home to a warm, crackling fireplace.<p>

She's sitting on the rug, knees drawn up to her chest, dressed only in a thin nightgown, her hair still falling halfway down her back just the way he likes it. He smiles sadly, remembering the "plans" they'd made previously - nothing will be happening tonight now, he's sure. But with the warm firelight reflecting off her face, making her eyes dance, she's so beautiful it hurts him.

"Hi," he whispers.

She turns to look at him with red-rimmed eyes. "Why are you here?"

And may she never know how much she just hurt him. "What do you mean?" he manages without stammering as he pulls off his boots and joins her on the rug, sitting down heavily. "I live here."

"Why would you want to?" she shakes her head and toys with the ends of her hair listlessly.

"Because you're here," he says simply, playing with the seams in the rug, running his finger around the patterned threads. "I don't need any other reason."

She inhales through her nose, throwing back her head and closing her eyes, and his eyes rest in a daze on the long graceful arch of her neck; he has to shake himself out of it to realize she's speaking. "Peeta, there isn't any point in not being honest with you anymore," she's saying in frustration. "You deserve so much better. You deserve someone who didn't singlehandedly start a rebellion."

He can't help himself.

He leans in slowly to kiss the delicate skin of her neck before opening his mouth to taste her with a satisfied sigh. She gives a start, but it's all she does, and something tells him she wants him to go on, no matter how conflicted her emotions are. It's only been a few hours, but oh, how he's missed this.

In spite of herself she begins to breathe a little faster, and he can tell it's taking all her self-control not to pull him closer. His lips kiss their way wetly up to her jaw line, lingering there for a moment, before he finds her earlobe and takes it into his mouth, sucking it gently. Her mouth is open and she lets out a single gasp, and he whispers into her ear, "You're wrong. I'm the one who doesn't deserve you."

"Stop," she breathes heavily and pushes him away. "That's not true. You're just saying that because you're stuck with me."

She should be proud that she has finally voiced the crux of the matter after so much effort, but the look on his face is so pain-stricken she forgets to feel anything happy at all.

"You think I don't love you," he rearranges her sentence. There's pain in his voice too. _"Why?"_

"You shouldn't love me! I killed your family!" she cries out, gesticulating wildly. "Isn't it obvious? I took away every_ goddamn_ thing you loved! Your whole life - the bakery…"

"You didn't take away anything! It wasn't your fault!" he exclaims back in frustration. "And the people who were actually responsible for this - _they_ didn't take everything, either! You're sitting right here in front of me! You're still here!"

"Stop lying," she protests, wishing that he _would_ stop. First he creeps into her heart and steals it, and then he realizes that the girl he's loved as a child is not the monster before him now. Tears begin rolling down her cheeks again and she wipes them away roughly on the back of her hand. She can't afford to believe anything this skilled liar of a boy tells her out of pity.

"Why would I lie? I love you! I love you, okay? I've loved you ever since we were five and don't you dare tell me that's a lie either. I've been dreaming of marrying you my whole entire life - "

"_Stop it_," she buries her face in her hands, sobbing, making the choking sounds he remembers hearing in the Quell when Finnick had revived him. She can't give in, she won't give in, but she_ wants_ to, so badly she can't even stop for air as she weeps.

He pulls her hands away so she'll look at him, and her scrunched-up face is still so beautiful it still hurts him. "I can prove how much I'm in love with you, Katniss Everdeen," his urgent whisper is hoarse. "Please - will - will you - marry me?"

She gasps, but still he rushes on, "Because I _really_ want to marry you, so much - so much," he squeezes out an awed laugh - "you have no idea. The effect you have." He takes a deep breath, trying not to stumble over the words that usually flow so smoothly from his lips. "I - Katniss - damn it, I want to call you my wife - and - and I want to be your husband, if you'll have me - "

"I don't deserve you," she argues feebly.

"But do you _want_ me?" he asks desperately. This is the only thing he has to know - the only thing she needs, really, if she has any idiotic notions about requiring some sort of qualification for his love.

Finally she looks him in the eye, and he catches the previously absent defiance he's always loved about her: the defiance she has when she stands up against whatever her common sense is warning her against. "Yes," she intones and drops her gaze in a blush. "I do want you, and it's killing me."

"Why?" he lowers his voice. "Because you think you don't deserve me?"

"I don't _think_ I don't deserve you, I know I don't," she snaps.

"It isn't a question of deserving."

He's said this only once before, but he can still see she's brought back to what they had done just that morning on the sofa.

She looks down at her lap, twisting her fingers together. There hadn't been anything more amazing than what he had done for her, how gently he had caressed her… and she remembered knowing so tangibly that he loved her.

"Real or not real?" she raises her eyes slowly back to his. A double question - one to his statement, one to the memory.

"Real," he breathes back. "Real to both. Real, real, real." The words, though soft, burn and imprint themselves in her mind, branding themselves there forever.

_Real._

_Real._

_Real._

She's tired of not trusting him when she had promised him she would. So she trusts him now, knows that it's the truth he speaks. She unfolds her limbs, unfurls like a phoenix rising from a bed of ashes, and stands, the fabric of her nightdress falling to her knees. Feeling clumsy and overdressed in his snow covered clothes, he whispers, "Don't leave me again. Please."

She kneels back just for a second and takes his hands in hers. "I'm not." And the slightest look in her eyes could make his heart burst out of his chest. She lets his hands go carefully and makes her way to the kitchen as he sits back and stares at the fire, wondering if Katniss Everdeen had just agreed that she would marry him.

The answer is in the plate she brought back with her, balanced carefully on her palms as if it held a fragile, easily broken thing. And is it turns out, the unevenly sliced bread does hold the hope he had lit within her, like a little flame shivering against a gale - almost like she was trying to call his non-existent bluff, but with a quiet desperation flickering in her eyes all the while, hoping against hope that he would really want her, really want to do… this.

Whatever answer she needs from him is seen in his face - his eyes widen, his mouth opens in the largest grin she has ever seen, and then he ducks his face in embarrassment. "I'm sorry, Katniss - " his voice breaks a little. "You're just so beautiful."

If only she could know how she'd _looked_ kneeling in front of him, clutching a plate of his bread and smiling so unsurely. She wanted to be his.

"So are you," she mumbles back, her hand slipping to his face, and he leans his face against her palm. She feels the light scratchiness of stubble beside her skin and can't help but smile that he hasn't managed to shave.

As he holds a piece of bread to the fire and toasts it lightly, she twists the hem of her nightgown and says, "Peeta. When you give me the bread - don't say anything. Please. I know you want to, but just… don't."

He looks at her in surprise before letting a laugh escape him. "How did you know I was planning a speech?"

"Because I know you, Peeta Mellark." Her lips twist into an unwilling smile.

He shakes his head and holds the bread to her. "Okay, then. Say 'ah'."

She rolls her eyes and opens her mouth, and he feeds her bread while their eyes meet and hold the longest of gazes. Bread. It had always been bread, even from the first two loaves that he had thrown her that day so long ago in the rain. Bread _is_ him - and he is a provider. He is life.

And she is his now.

She ends up burning her fingers as well as the bread, but he eats what she feeds him without a grimace and kisses her tender fingertip lightly where it hurts. Now, he is hers too.

Just like that, in this simple action they have just performed, he has proved to her that he loves her not out of pity, and she has proved to him that she loves him too after all of their past disagreements in the Games and with Gale and basically with everything. None of those things matter anymore. Feeding each other his bread is an actual event to mark their change of mind.

They stare at the empty plate for what seems like eternity before looking at each other with hesitant smiles. He moves closer, lifts her chin, and pauses before kissing her shakily. "They used to do that a century ago, you know," he whispers shyly. "They'd say, 'You may kiss the bride.'"

"Hardly a bride," she has to laugh.

"You're wearing a dress," his eyes involuntarily flicker down to catch her delicate neckline dipping lower and lower. He gulps and looks back up again. "So it counts."

"Any other century-old traditions?" she gives him a smirk when she sees him looking, and suddenly, somehow, when he hadn't been aware - her old self had come back.

"Well, yes," he grins back, going along with her. "After the kiss, they'd announce, 'Ladies and gentlemen, may I present Mr. and Mrs. Mellark.'"

The firelight reflects in her widening eyes. "Katniss Mellark," she says quietly. "I'd forgotten."

"You can still be Everdeen - " he begins to say, but she shakes her head.

"What else?" she asks quietly. "What other traditions do you remember?"

"Well," he replied softly. "The man and woman would drive back to their new home after the wedding dinner, and he would help her out and then -" she gives a surprised yelp as he scoops her up, smiling, "he'd carry her over the threshold."

"The threshold's over there," she groans, pointing towards the door. "A bit late for that."

"Maybe," he whispers sweetly against her ear and she shivers in spite of herself. "But there's still the stairs."

She turns to look at him and he holds his breath, waiting to see how she will respond. Her mouth curves into her signature smirk, making his knees go a little weak, and she leans into his ear, whispering, "Take me up, then."

So he carries her up to their room.

He sets her gently on the bed and moves to take off his sweater, but her fingers stop him. "I want to." And she pulls his sweater and undershirt over his head for the second time today, smiling as she takes in the sight of his bare skin pebbling just a little as it meets the cool air. There's more that she seems to notice this time, even though bright sunlight has been replaced by cold blue moonlight that filters gently through their windows. Her eyes hover over a little scar that has slashed its way across his heart, to the firm muscles below, back to the sparse blond hair on his chest which trails down to his navel and lower. She finds her eyes on his belt buckle, which she takes in her hands and undoes deftly.

His breath has caught and he watches her carefully as she pushes his pants down his hips, letting it fall to the floor. He steps out of them in his boxers, and she realizes this is the closest she has ever been to seeing him naked. He climbs onto their bed to join her, and they're so close - not that they've never been close before, but there had been something about the bread he had fed her, something that made his closeness even more intimate and the shivers and tingles within her so much greater.

His lips find hers; her second kiss as Katniss Mellark, and the thought alone pushes a little sigh through her lips. He bites her lower lip gently, taking it into his mouth, and her hands find his back as she tries not to dig her fingernails into his skin.

He buries his face in her hair and murmurs, "I love you. I love you so much."

"I…" she tries to reply, but he starts placing soft, sucking kisses at the side of her neck, and she promptly forgets herself when he finds the skin behind her ear and touches his tongue to it, earning a gasp. His hand travels up her thigh, beneath the hem of her nightgown, to rest on her bare hip and just above her underwear, and he's so close to where she's aching for him that it's hard to control her breathing. She breaks away to rip her nightgown off but he stills her hands, breathing, "Let me."

He knows he's undressed her before - this morning, in fact. But tonight, this moment, this nightgown is so different, so significant; because she is actually his _wife_. He's undressing his wife, in their bed, on their wedding night. Nothing could have prepared him for the freckles on her skin, which glow softly in the moonlight, and the scars he has memorized and ones he has forgotten under his gaze. His eyes travel slowly up to her face, and the smile she gives him wrenches him inside. Beautiful.

This time, she leans in to kiss him, tangling her fingers in the blond locks of his hair, pulling him as close to her as possible, still thrilling from the fact that after all that she had done to him, he could still want her, still want to be married to her. He smiles against her lips and slides his tongue between them gently to find her own. He nips the tip of her tongue slightly so she momentarily weakens in surprise and pleasure, goose bumps on the skin of her thighs which he gently caresses away before lowering his head and nuzzling the soft flesh there lovingly. She sighs again and keeps her hands in his hair, gasping when he kisses her through her underwear.

"Not yet," she breathes, tugging him back up. "Not tonight."

He breaks away, panting, to look at her as his heart sinks. "Not tonight?" He prays he hasn't heard her correctly, but she nods in affirmation so his heart sinks even lower. "Then… do you want to just… sleep?"

She begins to laugh - to giggle even - which makes her shake her head, furiously embarrassed. "I want this to be about you."

"What do you mean?" he asks, confused, because making her feel good _is_ about him too. She smiles simply and doesn't say a word, and he understands that she doesn't know how to say what she means.

She can only show him.

Her hand rests on his chest, and he closes his eyes and shivers, his breathing a little shallower. She relishes the feel of the firmness of his muscles, then softly makes her way lower as he tenses, and she follows the faint dusting of blond hair which trails down to his stomach, and then beneath. He sips a breath in surprise, his head tilted back involuntarily and his eyes squeezed shut when her hand touches him through his boxers. _Oh._

They shed his last piece of clothing together, and then the room is silent as though everything is holding its breath while she takes him in - her husband, her boy with the bread, her Peeta, all of him. She has never seen a man in this way before, she has never felt the need to see as much as she does now, and nothing could have prepared her for the overwhelming emotions that flood her at the unhidden sight of him. He is hers. Then her eyes meet his again and she blushes. "Sorry, I'm staring."

He shakes his head even though he's so embarrassed he doesn't want to look at her. "It's okay, Katniss." And it _is_ okay. She's entitled to this. He is hers.

He can't help the low groan that escapes his lips when she takes him gently in her hands, and she can't believe she is doing this either. Everything that they'd ever explored together, she realizes, was for her benefit. And while that was so decadent an experience in itself, she is in awe that for the first time, she is the one to make him feel good.

He is like silken steel, hard and yet tender, and warm to the touch in her still hands. Slowly she begins to move them, and the restraint and thickness in his voice surprises her when he gets out, "Katniss - "

She takes a deep breath to calm the excited fluttering in her stomach, because everything about this, about him, about how she makes him feel is amazing. She's a little unsure of how to go on, but she learns quickly that he responds with a gasp and a jerk when she moves her hands along him, and that when her fingers accidently brush past the tender under-skin of where his length meets the rest of him, his mouth hangs open and his head falls back in ecstasy as he bucks into her hands.

Soon she discovers that he is leaking wetness, and experimenting, she runs her thumb cautiously over his tip. Her reward would have been called a whimper if it hadn't been so deep and so hoarse and so low, and he seems to be trying to say something but she shuts him up effectively when her now moist hands caress his skin again. He forces himself into a sitting position, their foreheads bumping together as he moans, "I can't - be the only one - you too…"

He kisses her shakily while she keeps her hands moving slowly and tenderly, and soon his lips are still and open against hers as he gulps great breaths of air. He buries his hand in her now loose hair, holding her to him, while his other hand struggles with her bra clasp. The straps slip down her shoulders and he sighs in relief. She lets go of him for a second as he slides her bra down and off her hands, and he yearns for her touch, the touch that makes him forget himself just as he makes her forget herself. He mouths her collarbone and then the tops of her breasts sloppily in an attempt to pleasure her as well as her hands return to what they had been doing before. Although he's unable to do more than kiss her nipples and take them in his wet mouth, licking them feebly, it's more than enough for her at this point, and she whimpers as he hardens even more in her hands.

He isn't far, he knows, what with this being the very first time anyone had ever touched him and "anyone" - of all people - being Katniss. But he doesn't want to get there in her hands.

"Katniss," he breathes against her chest, but she has begun to slide down his body, leaving his face cold and bare and sweaty as she kisses his nipples, and then his navel, her tongue following the blond trail of hair to where her hands are working, and he loses his mind and cries out when she takes him into his mouth. He can't think of anything except of how overwhelmingly wonderful her wet lips feel around him, and her tongue flicking at his tip, no matter how hesitantly and cautiously, forces another cry out of him that is longer, louder. Then his previous thought registers suddenly in his mind - he doesn't want her hands, or her mouth now. He wants - her. He needs her to share this with him.

"Katniss," he tries again, pulling himself away from her. She withdraws in surprise, apprehension on her face.

I'm sorry - " she begins to stammer, but he shakes his head and pulls her to him, trying to catch his breath. "Katniss…" he pants into her ear, the undertone of shyness still clear, "I want to be inside you."

"But I want this to be about you," she argues, breathing in the sweet scent of his clean hair.

He pulls away to look her in the eye. They're both flushed, disheveled, and so undeniably happy that he's struck at how their worst night together had somehow turned into their best. "And I want this to be about both of us," he says softly.

The hands she rests on his back tense, he can feel it. The hard tips of her breasts graze against his chest with every breath she begins to take faster. And faster. And still faster. She bites her lip and looks away, and seeing this, he places his finger lightly at the tip of her chin and lifts her face back to his. He looks searchingly at her, and she looks back at him nervously. "What's wrong?" he whispers.

She lets out an unwilling laugh. Her fingers play absentmindedly with the curls at the nape of his neck, and he has to remember not to lose himself in her touch. "I'm just… scared," she admits softly. "But I want to."

"We'll go slow," he promises her gently. "Don't be afraid to tell me if you want to stop, okay?"

"Okay," she says hesitantly. The smile he gives her brings the dimple she'd never noticed until only recently, and something about that is endearing. She gives him a light kiss and whispers, "I love you, Peeta."

His smile breaks out into a joyful, boyish grin. Somehow, he can never get over those three words that she tells him off and on and usually at the most unexpected times. He lays her back down on the bed, leaning over her, and says, "I love you too, Katniss." He follows his words with a gentle kiss, and then another, and another, and soon they've both lost count as she hooks her thigh over his hips, drawing him closer, feeling the cool metal of his prosthetic over her skin. He gasps into her mouth to feel himself rubbing against the dampness of her underwear, but she draws his attention back with the frantic way her hands are sliding across his back. In turn, he presses kisses to her neck, to where it meets her shoulder, and then sucks a little of her left breast into his mouth and can't help but feel proud to feel her arch into him, keening.

Then her hands are pulling her underwear down her legs, and she manages to throw it beyond their bed to meet the rest of their clothes. He gathers her in his arms to kiss her again, and then he lays himself on top of her gently. She gasps as how the entirety of his bare skin against her own feels, her heart hammering out of her chest, and she can feel his thumping steadily to meet her own, and she feels something else… the tip of him is brushing lightly against her. They both moan at the sensation, and his voice is thick once again as he manages to get out, "So wet…"

She lets out a cry of surprise to feel his fingers slip between her dripping folds gently, and then as he finds the nub he knows she loves and rubs against it slowly, she shivers violently, turning her head to the side and moaning, "Peeta…"

"Will you say my name again?" he pleads huskily. Not that he needed to, his gently exploring fingers give her more than enough reason. She realizes she's been holding her breath as she moves against his fingers, and she exhales his name again in a long, drawn out sigh so he groans against her neck, his breath hot on her skin. He slowly pushes a finger into her and is surprised when she makes a noise he has never heard her make before. "Was that a meow?" he teases her breathlessly, feeling himself harden helplessly again at how she clenches around his finger.

"Shut up," she manages, pulling him back up to kiss her, but his second gentle finger's entry coaxes another long hum from her that, all obvious relation to her name aside, strangely resembles a pleading meow. He laughs against her lips but is surprised when her hand pulls his fingers out of her. "It's supposed to be about us," she pants, looking into his eyes. _Please_, her grey irises say. _I'm ready for you_.

"Okay," he whispers simply, and as they hold each other's gazes, he begins to press into her inch by inch, as slowly as he can, watching her. She has closed her eyes, breathing deeply, trying to keep calm even though he's sure this must hurt.

"Are you okay?" he manages to ask through his awe that he's in her and through his struggle to keep his self control up now that she is clenched around him in the most exquisite way possible.

She nods, trying to adjust to how he is stretching her and loving him still more for moving so slowly. Surprisingly, there is no barrier to break through - he has buried himself nearly entirely in her and they've not felt resistance.

His eyes see the grief in hers as she croaks, "The rebellion…" She isn't why she would be crying over the loss of something that had contributed to her fear of doing this in the first place, but the thought that she had been so stretched to her limits and thoroughly broken by the heartless, inhumane Capitol brings hot tears to her eyes. She can't even be whole for him, has no tangible guarantee that she has never been with anyone else except him.

"I've never - " she tries to say, then gulps down a painful lump that had been closing up her throat.

But he brushes his thumb across the softness of her cheek, kissing her tears away with gentle lips. "It's okay, Katniss. I - I know."

She sniffles, and he places one more kiss on her lips. "I know," he sighs. In the time he had taken to comfort her, she realizes she's now used to the fullness of him within her, filling her in a way she had never known possible. They had been made for this, to fit together so perfectly; she can't imagine what it would be like once he withdraws, and she begins to panic when she feels him slide out of her.

"Don't - "

"I'm not leaving," he promises her, blushing. "It's just… I need to move a little." And when he's pulled nearly all the way out, he thrusts back in to meet her. She can't help but let out the largest gasp she's ever heard herself release, feeling him fill her up again, and he groans as she clenches around him, inevitably hurtling him nearer the edge. He can't let that happen so fast, he tells himself as determinedly as he can manage; it's an unspoken, even un-thought-of promise he had unknowingly made to her and to himself that he never finish before she has had the chance to. This - the first time - will be nearly impossible. But he has to try.

He lets his head rest on her chest, burying his face between her breasts. He places wet kisses on her sensitive skin, tracing patterns around her nipple with his tongue, and her hyperventilation becomes openmouthed panting. "Oh, Peeta…" she moans, writhing beneath him as he builds a steady, comfortable, and unbearably slow rhythm. Her hips buck against his, colliding and out of tandem, and they exchange breathless laughs before she tries again to find a rhythm that fits his.

Soon they are rising and falling like the tide, dancing complicated steps they had never been taught but find so _right_ as they connect and move together as one. He is frowning in deep concentration, drops of sweat beginning to trace their way down his face. She opens her mouth and catches his sweat on her tongue for no other reason except to taste the sweetness of his labour, and his hand, which had been squeezing her breast gently, moves to caress her stomach before slipping down to where they are joined.

Her head falls back against the pillow with a loud cry when she feels his fingers fondle the hot, slick flesh between her legs - it's nearly too much to handle when he's already hard within her and filling her entirely. She lifts her leg to wrap it around him, rubbing her ankle against the small of his back; he gives a muffled shout, burying his face in her chest once again, and thrusts faster and harder. Just the way she likes it, she discovers.

One of her hands slides up his neck to bury itself in his hair, and the other clutches at the firm muscles of his lower back, now with a thin sheen of sweat covering it. "Please…" she whimpers as he does his best to keep being gentle although he's starting to lose control. "Don't - hold - back," she gasps, understanding the brief look of panic on his face immediately. She brings a hand to his neck, pulling him down to kiss her although their lips mainly just brush against each other, too overcome to kiss. "Let go." The tremble in her weak voice is enough to let him know that she is so much closer than he had thought.

So he lets go. He pulls her hips high off the bed, thrusts again, harder and deeper than before; and with that he finally reaches the place where she needs him most, where no one, not even he, has ever touched.

Hearing her shout his name so loud in ecstasy is nearly enough to send him over the edge too, it's the most beautiful sound he's ever heard. His fingers find their way between them again, teasing the little wet nub between her legs, and her single shout lengthens into a euphoric, prolonged sob of pleasure. Her walls are pulsating around him, merciless in their design to make him forget himself and forget her. Just a few more seconds now…

"_Let - go_," she struggles to regain her breath, gripping his shoulders and holding his gaze. The tears that glimmer in her grey eyes are his final undoing, and he buries his face in the crook of her neck, yelling her name as he finally, finally releases himself. She feels so warm, so full of him, and so wet, and he thinks he's off his head, completely in love with her all over again.

The night is now silent to the extreme that it seems loud in their ears as they breathe hard, trying to recover. He has no words to tell her how fantastic that had just been; she will never find the words in the first place to thank him for sharing this with her. So they lie, entwined, feeling their hearts beat furiously against each other's chests. He makes a move to slide out of her, but her legs wrap around him, holding him in place. "Not yet," she says softly. She wants to relish the sensation of completeness for just a little longer, never wants to let go of him and return to feeling hollow.

He blushes and whispers back, "Okay." Then, even softer and more shyly than she's ever heard him, he puts his lips to her ear and says, "Will you… will you please sing for me? The last time I heard your voice was in the propo where you were singing _The Hanging Tree_."

She frowns a little, and he has to say that he likes lying so close to her, pressed against her and dormant within her. He likes being so near her that all of her emotions and expressions are magnified.

She has never sung before just for him, it's true, and she understands that he wants to hear what made him fall in love with her and never recover again. "You want me to sing _The Hanging Tree_?"

"No," he shakes his head, his overgrown bangs tickling her forehead so she laughs a little, flinching. "Sing something happy."

"I only know one happy song," she whispers, her eyes on his, memorizing the way his irises furl and his pupils dilate and contract slightly, delicately.

He smiles. "Then that's the one I want."

She clears her throat and lets out a small cough which in turn causes her to squeeze him slightly, but they both pretend they don't notice as it's embarrassing to try and figure out, anyway. Then she parts her lips, and he forgets even the sensation of being inside her at the sound of the voice he has always loved. "_Deep in the meadow_," she begins, softly, hesitantly.

She looks for a response from him, a smile or a word or anything, but he's staring at her transfixed, mouth slightly open. Biting her lower lip, she continues, "_Hidden far away; a cloak of leaves, a moonbeam ray…_" At this he closes his eyes, inhaling the scent of her through his nose, trying to picture rustling grass under cool blue moonlight. She has to smile at this - he will always be painting a picture in his mind.

"_Forget your woes and let your troubles lay_," she begins to relax, her voice sweeter and clearer. "_And when again it's morning, they'll wash away_." Nothing except the smallest of sighs from him.

_Here it's safe, here it's warm_

_Here the daisies guard you from every harm…_

Her voice trembles a little at the highest note, remembering how resonant and poignant her father's bass had sounded in harmony with hers. She can feel Peeta's gaze on her now, telling her she can stop if she wants, but she chooses to continue, taking a deep breath.

_Here your dreams are sweet and tomorrow brings them true;_

_Here is the place where I_ - she falters, suddenly overcome with emotion - _where I love you._

It had been first her father's song, and then Prim's, and then Rue's. Now, she has given it to her husband, her Peeta, and she knows the significance isn't lost on him. He shakes his head as if in a daze while she finally lets him withdraw from her, telling herself that it won't be long before they find themselves with the need to feel whole again. He nuzzles her neck with a deep sigh, murmuring, "Thank you. You have never sung for me before, do you know that?"

"I'm glad I have now," she whispers back, and he catches her hand to press a shy kiss against her palm.

"You love me," he says in awe, sounding so young, so innocent.

So whole.

So _healed_.

"Real or not real?" he adds softly with a twinkle in his eye. She catches the faint teasing lilt in his question and huffs, pulling the blankets away from him in mock exasperation and wrapping herself in them so he's left completely exposed. She pulls the comforter up to cover her bare chest just as his eyes drift towards it, denying him his viewing rights. "What do _you_ think, dummy?" she smirks and takes a leaf – pun intended – out of Johanna's book, reminding him of just how bare the two of them are. His response is a gulp and a telltale sign that he might be ready for another round.

_After all_, she reasons happily as he attacks her, _two can play this game_. Which game she's referring to will always be a mystery, but she's done thinking.

And they make love throughout the night until they fall out of bed.

* * *

><p><em>This is the same place <em>

_No, not the same place_

_This is the same place, love _

_No, not the same place we've been before..._

_Hey, love_

_I am a constant satellite _

_Of your blazing sun;_

_My love, _

_I obey your law of gravity;_

_This is the fate you've carved on me,_

_The law of gravity;_

_This is the fate you've carved on me,_

_On me._

* * *

><p>AN: Your call. Would you like me to continue? (Because I think this is a perfect place to stop.) Leave a review and let me know, <em>please<em>.


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